Open-standard online observation services
Web services for Earth observation via satellites
Project duration: June 2010 až June 2012
Project manager: Milan Nováček
The project Open-standard Online Observation Service (O3S) was performed under a European Space Agency GSTP programme, where the Space Department of our company was one of three subcontractors to EOX IT Services GmbH Austria.
The project addressed the evaluation and demonstration of Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Services, in particular of areas where the Web Coverage Service (WCS) and the Web Map Service (WMS) technologies can bring benefits to satellite Earth Observation (EO) Payload Data Ground Segments (PDGS) and to users. These areas include, for example, online data access and provision of value added products.
WCS permits innovative “coverage-oriented“ views into satellite data archives and is an alternative to traditional scene- or file-based data access. The Earth Observation Application Profile of WCS, is designed to enhance the usability of satellite data supplies by providing retrieval of archived data which reside exactly inside user-specified parameter ranges, typically the geographic area and time of interest. WCS avoids tedious unpacking, clipping, decoding, and reformatting of downloaded data by delivering user-selected content and representations. WCS therefore makes it easier to build user-side functionality like automated higher-level product generation processing and to support interactive data exploitation applications. The project included WCS access by means of the SOAP-protocol.
Part of the overall project activity included contribution to the standards process for the evolving EO-WCS standard published by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC).
Siemens Convergence Creators
The company is the global partner for communication demands within a broad range of market segments. It stands for innovative products, turnkey solutions, and services in the fields of communication networks, service and customer management, public security, multi-media infotainment, and aerospace technology.
The Space Department in the Czech Republic was established in 1998 and has been involved in developing various software solutions for the European Space Agency (ESA), the German Space Agency (DLR), the European navigation system Galileo, as well as for leading satellite operators. It has a longstanding expertise in executing complex international projects related to satellite communications and ground segment solutions.
Siemens Convergence Creators, s.r.o., formerly ANF DATA spol. s r.o., is an affiliated company of Siemens.
What would you name as main benefit of the project to your company?
“We have gained valuable experience with the Open Geospatial Consortium Standards for Earth Observation such as WCS and EO-WCS. We expect that our experience from O3S will increase our chances on possible future cooperation with ESA in the field of Earth Observation and Ground Segment software.”