TECHNOLOGY

BENEFITS InSAR

  • Millimeter precision
  • Weekly measurements
  • 180,000 measurements/km2
  • Look back in time (as far back as 1992)
  • Remote measurement (Without personnel or road or rail closures)
  • Digital and uniform (Digital data, integrated directly into your own system)

RADAR SATELLITES

InSAR technology works on the basis of radar satellites. The advantage of radar is that it works under all weather conditions as well as during the day and night. There are several radar satellites operating and in recent years the technology has taken a bird’s eye view with the launch of many new radar satellites. We do not operate our own satellites, but use all the major public and commercial data sources available. These satellites may differ in resolution, recording interval, availability of historical data, and price. We use these factors to determine which data type is best for your application.

InSAR

InSAR technology makes it possible to detect small movements to within a few millimeters, such as those caused by soil subsidence. The satellite transmits a signal to the Earth’s surface and measures the reflections returned from buildings, other structures, and the Earth itself, amongst other things. By comparing these recordings over time, we can measure millimeter-accurate elevation changes.

Which reflections come back to the satellite depends on the properties of the surface. They tend to be stronger for hard, angular objects such as urban areas, roads, or hard ground. On water, vegetation, or locations with a lot of movement, measurements will be lacking.
The raw result of the InSAR technique is a “point cloud” of up to 180,000 measurement points per km2 with weekly to biweekly measurements behind them.

The real power of InSAR lies in the time series. With up to 60 recordings per year, very small-scale patterns can be tracked over areas as large as an entire country or as small as an individual building.

height

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measurements/km2

measurements per year

SIMPLE, FOCUSED PRODUCTS

Sensar’s goal is to make the use of satellite data as easy as possible; directly applicable without extensive knowledge of satellite technology. For our products, we therefore do several smart post-processing operations on the raw point cloud. We call this process conflation. In conflation, we combine our deformation measurements with public data sources (BAG, BGT, TOP10NL) into insightful information per object. To determine the representative deformation, the algorithm looks at the object type, measurement type, noise level, and location. Measurements with higher relevance count more heavily while outliers are removed. Objects with insufficient (qualitative) coverage are given no value. Thus, we put the object at the center, rather than the measurements. In this way, we remove the complexity of satellite data for the user.

Our data is available in a GIS format (e.g. Geopackage), so you can import and integrate it into your own GIS system. In addition, we have our own interactive web viewer of which the results can be easily viewed on a desktop or mobile browsers.

We have developed specific products for various applications. On our applications page you can find more information about these.

INNOVATION AND CO-CREATION

At Sensar, we continue to invest in improving our products. That is why we like to think along with you when implementing our products in your organization. We believe that you get the best results with co-creation. We can then use the lessons learned for your colleagues with the same problems.

In our innovations, we look at new satellites and new techniques such as Artificial Intelligence. In the future, more and better data will become available, creating new opportunities. We look forward to working with you to innovate and bring new, improved products to market.