From a nanosatellite that will inaugurate a new Portuguese constellation in 2024, to a new sensor system for intelligent submarine cables, the innovation led by Portuguese companies in partnership with Portuguese and American universities has reached results that promise to make people talk in the future.

In the last three years, dozens of projects have brought together Portuguese companies, national and American universities and other scientific partners, within the scope of R&D initiatives carried out in conjunction with three partnerships that Portugal has maintained since 2006, with Carnegie Mellon University, MIT and the University of Texas in Austin. These large-scale R&D projects received funding from Portugal 2020 and investment from the companies themselves which, for the first time within the scope of these programs, were called upon to lead projects. Some of the results achieved are already the basis for new projects that will continue to develop knowledge in the respective areas. Others ended up with products that have reached or are about to reach the market.

This is the case of the AEROS Constellation, which was used to develop from scratch and prepare the launch of a new nano satellite (CubeSat) which will be the first of a constellation, operated from Portugal and with Portuguese technology, collecting data to monitor the ocean and areas coastal geographic areas. The CubeSat will be launched into space on February 2 next year by SpaceX and will also be the first satellite from the future Atlantic Constellation to enter orbit.

On the Portuguese side, the project brought together IMAR, CEiiA, Air Centre, Spinworks, dstelecom, +Atlantic, Universities of Minho, Porto, Lisbon and Algarve and IST. Plus Edisoft, which led and recognizes having found an opportunity here “in terms of engineering to learn how to carry out a mission from A to Z, which was an experience we didn't have”, as Hélder Silva, Head of Space Software and Embedded of Systems from Thales Edisoft says. On the American side, the partner was MIT, within the scope of the MIT Portugal initiatives, with whom the company ended up maintaining a relationship and holding weekly meetings to prepare for the February launch, even after the project had been officially completed.

Edisoft has been working in the space sector since 2006 and has participated in more than 50 missions, but this was the first time it prepared a mission from the first moment to the last. Each partner took on a task. The company has aquired important knowledge by adressing software integration and on-board software and is already exploring commercial opportunities.

“As we are part of the Thales group, we intend to resell our expertise and our on board software for other satellites in the group”, says Hélder Silva.

CubeSat distinguishes itself from other satellites by the instruments it can combine into a satellite with its dimensions, which makes it a more versatile and also cheaper solution. It has the capacity for “three payloads, a hyperspectral camera very small for its requirements, Software-defined Radio - which implements two different protocols and an RGB camera, which helps position the image taken by the hyperspectral”. It is a unique configuration, highlights the person responsible for Edisoft.

The ability to collect segmented information from the hyperspectral camera will give scientists more accurate data about changes in the oceans. For example, enriching the available data on the different colors reflected in the water body, important for monitoring changes in ecosystems. As new satellites are added to the constellation, it will be possible to revisit the same areas more frequently and have more information in real time about the various parameters analyzed.

Safeforest started with fire prevention but is the trigger for solutions in other areas

In a completely different area, Safeforest's results should also continue to gain scale in the coming years, but in this case because the knowledge developed in this R&D project can be applied to several areas. One of them has already allowed the creation of a commercial product.

Safeforest is synonymous with Semi-autonomous Robotic System for Forest Cleaning and Fire Prevention and designates the project that was dedicated to creating an innovative and low-cost solution to monitor and reduce the risk of forest fires, facilitating the conservation and maintenance of forests. It was designed to speed up the cleaning of forests but also other critical infrastructure to reduce the likelihood of large fires spreading, such as homes, roads, railways or telecommunications lines.

It brought together Ingeniarius, which led the project, the Institute of Systems and Robotics, the Association for the Development of Industrial Aerodynamics, Silvapor and The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

The system has several "parts", developed by different consortium partners, who in the project found and tested ways to make them work together. The robotic system focuses on a machine whose mechanical component had already been developed by Ingeniarius and which, as part of the project, was integrated with another system (drones), which collects essential data on the ground for route programming.

In practice, the drone teams map the areas to be cleaned and the tracked loader removes unwanted vegetation using a forestry chopper, following the route created from the data collected by the drones, which has now been analyzed by artificial intelligence to define routes that avoid trees and other obstacles.

Integrating these systems and finding a way to take advantage of the inputs of one to improve the action of another were the great gains of the collaboration.

“During the project we carried out several tests, to confirm the ability to correctly map routes, accurately define what should or should not be removed by the robot and validate the ability to execute the plans drawn up by the system on the ground”, explains Micael Couceiro.

The CEO of Ingeniarius believes that in the future the prototype will become a final product. It is necessary to mature the solution, but also find someone willing to invest in the almost 4-ton giant that is the robot used in the project. Meanwhile, the technology is taking advantage of the robot's navigation and perception software developed in the project to apply to solutions in other areas.

It has already helped a Luxembourg company place an autonomous robot for cleaning solar panels on the market, with versions for ground and roofs, the F1A and P1A. In livestock farming, the technology company that develops tailor-made engineering and robotics solutions wants to use the technology in a system for cleaning cowsheds and is also looking at civil construction.

K2D made dstelecom see the bottom of the sea with different eyes (and plans)

dstelecom also believes it can go far with the results of the R&D project it led within the scope of MIT Portugal initiatives, K2D: Knowledge and Data from the Deep to Space. If at Safeforest the challenge came from the academy partners, at K2D it was the telecommunications company that launched the idea and looked for partners to materialize it into a real solution. K2D was dedicated to developing an ocean monitoring system, which could work on a global scale. The system takes advantage of Smart Submarine Cables, equipped with sensors connected to optical repeaters.

The last prototype was recently completed, with the support of the Portuguese Navy and installed a 2km long intelligent submarine cable near the port of Sesimbra, in the open sea and with depths that in some areas are greater than 100 meters. An infrastructure of this type can collect real-time data on earthquakes, tsunamis, marine fauna, pollution, vessel circulation, submersibles, or water temperature, among others.

The company began to look at the topic that led it to the R&D project as an opportunity to create a greater value proposition, in a business area adjacent to those in which it already operates. Today he admits the possibility of creating a separate company to explore the potential of the solution developed.

dstelecom operates a fiber network used by telecommunications operators to provide services in low population density areas. The infrastructure covers 800 thousand homes in 140 municipalities, with plans to reach 900 thousand, but it is known that in this area the growth margin will be exhausted within some time. The “strategy for the future involves growing in adjacent areas”, trying to replicate the fiber business model in wireless communications, but also looking with interest at maritime connections, admits Ricardo Salgado.

“We positioned ourselves to be the partner that could invest in the replacement and management of the submarine cables that connect the continent and the islands. We tried to express this availability to the government and the regulator and it was as a result of this that the regulator challenged us to add something new to a possible proposal for a new infrastructure of this type”, reveals the CEO of dstelecom.

The following contacts and developments leave the company little hope that it will be the chosen partner for the project, but the solution developed in the meantime in the R&D consortium may have paved the way for exploring opportunities in a new area.

This experience allowed us to “realize that today there is a business potential associated with capturing and processing data that is even greater than the business of data transmission via submarine cables. There are other types of stakeholders, such as institutes, navies, governments, but there is a lot of interest”, recognizes Ricardo Salgado.

The person in charge adds that the operator is “trying to understand the best way to continue” the work carried out, but does not rule out the possibility of creating a spin-off and creating a new company dedicated to this area.

K2D brought together, in addition to dstelecom, the University of Minho, INESC-TEC, ASN – Alcatel Submarine Cables; AIR CENTER – Association for the Development of the Atlantic International Research Centre, University of the Azores, MIT and Cintal – Algarve Technological Research Center.

Source: Sapo Tek