From promise to practice - the lessons we needed to learn to make in sar succesful

1. From promise to practice
The lessons we needed to learn to make InSAR succesful
Jos Maccabiani
www.skygeo.com Oude Delft 175, Delft Netherlands info@skygeo.com

2. Currently 17 people (and hiring!)
Offices in NL & USA
Operating worldwide
65% Geodesy, Radar, Signal Processing
15% Programming, SysOps
20% Geotech, Geology, Economy, Physics
Pieter Bas Leezenberg
Co-Founder & CEO
Jos Maccabiani
Dir. Professional Services
Prof.dr.ir. Ramon Hanssen
Co-Founder & Scientific Advisor

3. We use all available InSAR satellites
Satellite images are 20x20 km in size or larger
Resolutions are available from 7x25 to 1x1 meter
• ALOS 1/2
• ERS 1/2
• ENVISAT
• Radarsat-2 (S3 / UF / XF)
• Cosmo SKYMED (SM, SL)
• TerraSAR-X (SM / SL)
• Sentinel-1A (IW)

4. InSAR principle
First pass Secondpass
measuring phase changes for
millimeter-level deformation measurements
e.g. 6 cm

5. The standard product: deformation map
6 million timeseries in Rotterdam, NL

6. Why nobody cares cared in civil engineering
• Commercial images are €3000/each or more – we need >20
• Our method provides millions of data points. You can detect subtle
trend changes over thousands of objects. Who has time to review
that?
• Our methods require high level of expertise to even explain. Clients
need time to trust it, like they do with GPS.
• Strategically using new data sources often requires change of internal
processes in a client’s organisation. The benefits must be substantial
for that.
• Everybody is used to working with little data and lots of assumptions.
Current approaches favor expertise over data.

7. $
183M
$
15M
$
70M
Spire
$
90M 24 (O)
131 (O)
50 (M)
16 (O+R)
7 (M)$
9.2B
Satellite data will be ubiquitous

8. The 4 most important lessons
1. Learn your client’s business. Thoroughly. Help them understand
where the EO data can support a business process.
2. Probably your EO product is interesting. But adoption will speed up
if you use it as raw material for another product.
3. Pilot projects are trust builders. A pilot is only small in terms of the
client’s investment. You spend as much time as needed to provide a
convincing result.
4. When a successful pilot requires organization change to scale up,
make sure there’s a strong champion involved and support them
where possible.

9. 1. Learn your client’s business
Explaining to a prospect what
services you can provide for
improved oil field monitoring.
Are you pitching for a quarterly
update or for a near-real-time
service?

10. Oil & Gas production:
Continuous monitoring of subsidence
A new measurement per 11 days
Processed & reported within 12 hours
Engineering meeting scheduled day after!

11. 2. Pilot projects are trust builders
Don’t make the pilot destroy trust. One bad experience can quickly
spread through social (offline) networks.
When you commit to a pilot, don’t stop when the budget is gone. You
invested as well as your prospective client.
Choose very well before offering a pilot project. Is the problem generic
or only applicable to this client?

12. North side:
No long-term deformation
South side:
Long-term deformation

13. “Your results do not match our tachymetry measurements.
Can you check what you did wrong?”
InSAR has been investigated
and validated for decades, yet
we are validating still with
most new projects.
It’s part of a ‘rite of passage’
for a new technique
We learned to offer it up
front.
Tachymetry results. Color: z-deformation. Arrows: (x,y) deformation
North side:
Deformation
South side:
Deformation

14. Tachymetry (x,y,z) in radar LOS
InSAR deformation measurements in LOS (Radarsat-2 | 2010-2015)

15. 3. Use the EO data as raw material
Are you producing coal?
• Which is a complex operation!
• …but requires the client to build a
power plant
Or are you producing Energy?
In a new market segment, vertical
integration is usually key to success

16. Woerdenmunicipality
The goal:
To help determine the maximum
lifetime expectancy of the roads in
Woerden for budgeting purposes
The raw material:
• 300.000 data points
• From 47 TerraSAR-X StripMap images

17. May 2015:
Some data, known to be very noisy.
Delivered in time for 5-year budget decision and matching
fairly well with local expertise.
October 2015
More data, leading to normal precision levels.
Virtually same results for roads lifetime calculation
Initial height
Age
Height in 2008 (AHN2)
Deformation rate in 2014
Ground water level in 2015
Time to maintenance
+

18. -8
-7
-6
-5
-4
-3
-2
-1
0
D
iffe
re
n
tial Se
ttle
m
e
n
t Δ
δ
m
ax [m
m
]
Damage level
Building aggregsates with pile foundation
Avarage
Std.dev.
D0 D1 D2 D3 D4 D5
-8
-7
-6
-5
-4
-3
-2
-1
0
D
iffe
re
n
tial Se
ttle
m
e
n
t Δ
δ
m
ax [m
m
]
Damage level
Building aggregsates with shallow foundation
Avarage
Std.dev.
D0 D1 D2 D3 D4 D5

19. Improving settlement predictions
24
Settlements in meter in 6 years

20. 4. Find and support champions

21. Stedin Utilities Network Operator
The goal:
Help increase efficiency in gas pipeline repair, so Stedin
can repair the most critical pipelines first.
The problem:
The organisation is not used to working on the per-
pipeline level, but on Zipcodes.
Many complaints = replace whole zipcode (PC4)
Savings of 30% annually are expected.

23. The 4 most important lessons
1. Learn your client’s business.
2. Use your EO product as raw material for another product.
3. Treat pilot projects as the most important type of project.
4. Find and cherish champions of change

24. www.skygeo.com Oude Delft 175, Delft Netherlands info@skygeo.com