Saturday, September 17, 2016
104
Friday, February 10, 2017
Monitoring of the Environment and Territory
No
Territory, Environment and Cultural Heritage, Safety and Security, Software Development and Virtual Reality
The purpose of this line of research is to generate innovation with the transfer of skills and technologies from the Aerospace sector to management of the territory, protection of the environment, and the safeguarding of cultural heritage.
The process of technological transfer must, however, work both ways. CIRA will make skills in the field of aerospace available to these sectors, but will also work hard to acquire skills relating to the issues in this field of research. CIRA is committed to the development of systems both in the 'remote sensing' field (from Satellite Platforms and Stratospheric Platforms), in agreement with the Italian Space Agency, and in the 'proximal remote sensing' field (from Airplanes, Helicopters and RPAS systems).
Meteorology and monitoring of the climate and atmosphere and predicting its evolution in the short term represent an important tool for the management of the territory and emergencies (like hydrogeological instability). Accordingly, the registration of observations using remote platforms or ones in situ permits detailed characterisation of the microclimatic characteristics of the areas of interest. Combining the observations with suitable and innovative prediction tools is a way of then reducing uncertainty during decision-making processes.
CIRA, through the development of research and innovation, intends to play a leading role in the sector with a programme that integrates disparate and innovative technologies in the fields of monitoring the territory, protection of the environment, the safeguarding of cultural heritage, and flight safety that, due to their interdisciplinary nature, are not easy to develop.
CIRA is committed to:
consolidating and integrating its know-how with the development of aerospace technologies useful for applications, and acquiring essential knowledge to help understand all the requirements, size the systems, and implement technologies in the field.
updating disciplinary skills in the sectors of reference and the equipment for acquisition and experimentation in the field;
developing new monitoring systems which integrate innovative aerospace platforms and innovative measuring sensors, using these systems for demonstration, and transferring the products of research.
further internationalising research activities with the Horizon 2020, LIFE and ESA programmes.
In the case of monitoring systems to be implemented, a small class of UAS systems have been used together with satellite platforms. The next step involves the integration of data obtained from classic airborne platforms (airplanes, helicopters) and, by 2020, from stratospheric platforms. A paradigm of interoperability among these platforms is under development.
The goal is to devise a prototype monitoring system based on specific measurement sensors transported by an LTA stratospheric platform, capable of movement at low speed and geostationary hovering (at an operating height of between 18 and 20 km). The observation payloads will be reconfigurable depending on the application of the mission: Pollution, Precision Agriculture, Homeland Security, Monitoring of the Atmosphere, Hydrogeological Instability, etc.
In the field of meteorology and monitoring of the climate, an experimental facility is being set up primarily for the purpose of supporting the development of prediction tools. The availability of observations paves the way for the development of a new category of predictive models on different temporal and spatial levels, for making predictions in the nowcasting field.
In fact, on the basis of this data, a HW-SW platform with various tools for making predictions and monitoring will be developed over the next few years. It will make it possible, for example, to predict "aviation hazards", namely weather events that could have a high impact on flight safety.
Subsequently, taking into account the various fields of application, we intend to make available additional products for better serving the sectors that require the monitoring and prediction of atmospheric phenomena of interest (e.g. alternative energies: wind and solar).
The purpose of this line of research is to generate innovation by applying the technologies and skills acquired in the Aerospace sector to management of the territory, environmental protection and the safeguarding of cultural heritage.
Monitoring of the Environment and Territory
