Monitoring the Earth for geopolitical and economic insights

Data from Earth Monitor reveals the number of cars and trucks in an area of Amsterdam. (Image: Airbus)

The new Earth Monitor tool draws from the Airbus imagery archive and satellite tasking capabilities to provide advanced geospatial analysis, trends and detection maps.

Available as part of Airbus’s OneAtlas suite of geospatial tools, Earth Monitor enables customers to draw precise, timely and meaningful conclusions. It uses Orbital Insight’s machine learning and computer vision expertise through algorithms that detect changes in infrastructure and land use in near-real time. It can identify and count objects such as cars, trucks, roads, homes, buildings and construction sites and, soon, aircraft.

Earth Monitor can identify trends, spot patterns and track economic activity, delivering advanced geospatial analysis and change-detection maps on customized areas of interest to users in defense, intelligence and law enforcement.

Earth Monitor comes from a collaboration between Airbus Defense and Space, a French aerospace company, and Orbital Insight, a Silicon Valley startup. The OneAtlas platform combines Airbus’ constellation and tasking services with Orbital Insights’ analytic capabilities.

Orbital Insight’s algorithms draw on petabytes of data from multiple sources, such as satellite and synthetic aperture radar imagery, geolocation intelligence and vessel traffic data.

The tool’s interface enables users to create and manage projects, customize analyses and define period and measurement frequencies.