What Brands Need to Know About Remote Sensing Data
What is Remote Sensing Data?
Remote sensing is the process of detecting and monitoring an area’s physical characteristics by measuring the reflected and emitted radiation from a safe distance. Remote sensing is a fast-growing opportunity in the tech sector helping businesses accurately view terrain and surface data.
“There has been a boom in companies that capture low-Earth orbit satellite data and LiDAR, or light detection and ranging, to gain a real-time, granular view of the changes to the environment surrounding assets. We mainly leverage LiDAR data to derive its powerful terrain, surface model and point cloud analytics,” said Toby Kraft, CEO & Founder, Teren. “LiDAR penetrates the canopy (the trees, etc.) to assess what’s happening at the ground level at a high resolution. And while there is also efficacy in satellite-based photography, LiDAR provides the granularity needed to accurately assess geologic threats such as landslides to determine their direction and severity and hydrological occurrences to determine where water runoff and ponding will occur.”
What Brands Must Understand About RSD
Ultimately, remote sensing data is faster to access and analyze and safer for people than ground-based surveys, which require companies to send teams of surveyors out into potentially dangerous mountain areas such as the Appalachian region or the Canadian Rockies. How can brands invest?
“Companies should seek out remote sensing tech that goes beyond capturing just LiDAR and focuses on delivering innovative analytics. It’s crucial for remote sensing data to leverage the power of high-performance computing, machine learning and environmental sciences to streamline the remote sensing value chain and deliver greater value to clients,” said Kraft.
Why Brands Need RSD
Today, remote sensing is the fastest and most efficient way to collect the type of data that is useful to companies with physical assets and infrastructure in a given region. Specifically, this data often benefits pipeline operators and electric transmission companies but can also prove beneficial for commercial and residential property owners or clean energy companies operating or looking to build solar farms.
“In a world where natural disasters and extreme weather events are increasing in size, severity and frequency, infrastructure must be built and operated for physical resilience. Climate-related physical threats, such as floods and wildfires, pose a direct threat to asset integrity and indirectly threaten assets by destabilizing the hydrologic, vegetative, and soil conditions surrounding the infrastructure.Specifically, destabilized hydrologic, vegetative and soil conditions cause the ground to become susceptible to mass movement, such as landslides,” said Kraft. “But in developing an understanding of the hydrologic, vegetative and geologic threats at hand, operators can make better decisions about how to mitigate those threats by shoring up potential landslide areas, installing erosion controls, and mitigating unnecessary repair expenses in the long run.”
