SPACE+SPATIAL Industry Growth Roadmap | http://ssir-consult.cofluence.co Towards 2030 Mon, 31 May 2021 03:55:36 +0000 en-AU hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.5 Turning environmental monitoring into management http://ssir-consult.cofluence.co/5-24/ Sun, 09 May 2021 12:33:10 +0000 http://ssir-consult.cofluence.co/?p=18843

Challenge

The current paradigm for earth observation systems involves data collection to monitor ecological/ environment systems with data analysis informing decision makers on actions that may deliver certain outcomes. Moving to a management focused approach requires access to a wider range of data with better data governance, coupled with advanced analytics/machine learning techniques for sense-making and greater use of spatial digital twins. The key is to develop phenomena-specific systems purposely designed to respond to (societal, environmental and economic) pressures to produce the highly valuable information products that end users ideally want, rather than just creating more low value data. This will enable the introduction of prognostic/ predictive capabilities supporting better, more timely decision making and intervention. It includes identifying what technology developments and investments is required to enable this evolved approach. Critical priority issues include responding to the effects of global climate change, urbanization, population growth and building a circular economy model (including reducing system wastage).

Fundamental and essential environmental information is required for citizens and communities to make decisions. One example is monitoring beach water quality which is affected by a number of factors including storm water run-off. Monitoring the water quality of vulnerable beaches improves government and community planning and decision-making processes.

To turn environmental monitoring into environmental management and help with the decision- making process, a multidisciplinary data collaboration is needed to collect and integrate diverse types of datasets from many organisations, often where data is acquired and used in silos with respect to data collection, management, analysis and dissemination. The Victorian State of the Environment 2018 Report, which is an environmental report card that measures the health of Victoria’s environment, has identified a similar trend. The Report has recommended that the Victorian government develops their spatial information capability and database to inform decision-making across the environment portfolio. Similarly, in the Australian Space Agency report on the role of space-based earth observations to support planning, response and recovery from bushfires, they have also identified the need for an easy-to-use directory of satellite imagery for use by all stakeholders including emergency management for better use of earth observation data.

Systemic integration of spatial datasets from various jurisdictions and fields will provide insights that can lead to smarter decisions and the construction of more comprehensive strategies. Advanced computing power, cloud computing and big data analytics such as artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies can demonstrate how faster and better, decision making can be done Australian Energy Market Operator CEO, Audrey Zibelman reflected on ‘‘What I have learned in Australia is how important advanced computing and the application of artificial intelligence (AI)and machine learning is to our industry to navigate to greater electrification of the economy and a diverse, decarbonised power system.’’ (AFR 1/10/20)

OPPORTUNITY FOR GROWTH

Identified opportunities relate to technology and while land and land use planning are traditional domains for the spatial industry, in terms of application of spatial to environmental monitoring and management, the opportunity is vast from application to bays, waterways, marine and coastal environments to air quality management and green-house gas reduction by decarbonization of the energy and transport systems for example.

  • Data governance, accountabilities and a systematic approach to data management for spatial data collection, integration, storage and ongoing management across government and portfolio agencies. Currently, there is limited accountability for data management and integration from multi-agencies and the requirement to maintain high-quality datasets that lead to enabling sophisticated analyses. Data governance should be established and clearly articulate roles and responsibilities for relevant agencies.
  • Long-term earth observation information: Various satellites have different temporal scales with varying levels of image resolutions. Integration of data from those satellites to create decades of information for various environmental themes with analytic applications such as machine learning will be highly useful for environmental management and decision-making processes. One example is Landsat Surface Reflectance statistics for land cover mapping developed by DEA. For example Victorian government use these statistics to map the dynamic changes in land cover through time in Victoria (from 1985 to present). They model land cover across Victoria, including native vegetation (herbaceous, woody and wetlands), intensive agriculture and recreation, forestry and the built environment, including urban areas. Time-series of spatial optical data have demonstrated high capacity for characterisation of environmental phenomena, describing trends as well as discrete change events.
  • Higher accuracy positioning systems: SBAS is currently in development in Australia and New Zealand and expected to be operational in 5-10 years. SBAS can improve positioning accuracy from a meter level to a centimeter level. This has very strong implications for enhancing environmental and disaster preparedness and management and protecting life and assets – environmental and physical infrastructure – as well as for industries such as forestry and quarries where accuracy is key to ensure boundary management and species protection during operations to maintain a social license to operate.
  • Measuring three-dimensional structure of Australian forests using satellite: Currently, three- dimensional mapping of forest structure has been performed by LiDAR technology using aircraft. This mapping exercise is important for forest biomass and structure monitoring, leading to enabling a solid estimation of time-series forest carbon storage from the ground. However, this is time-consuming and labor intensive. Satellites harnessed with LiDAR technology will provide a significant impact on responding to the effects of global climate change. In 2018, NASA launched two sensors into space that will play a prominent role in monitoring forest biomass and structure over the next decade: the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) now attached to the International Space Station, and the Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2).These two satellites, which in combination provide complete coverage of the planet, are equipped with LiDAR sensors that record forest structure in 3D, contributing to an ongoing wave of large-scale forest ecosystem measurements. This technology also has the potential to monitor climate impacted environments such as coastal settlements – to manage coastal inundation and erosion due to sea level rise and storms from climate change.

ACTIONS

1. Ongoing- and cross-agency collaboration across industry and governments is key to improving spatial information capability and datasets to inform decision-making across the environment portfolios of government/s. In addition, data governance and clearly defining accountability for data collection, storage, management and integration across agencies could provide a systematic approach to ensure high quality data capture to empower analytic methods such as artificial intelligence and machine learning.

2. It is important that end users of spatial technology are regularly informed of megatrends in spatial technologies so current information and understanding can be applied to their land and environmental monitoring, management and decision-making processes and diminish the barriers to adopting new technologies for sustainable environment management.

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Diversity & Inclusion across the space & spatial communities http://ssir-consult.cofluence.co/5-09/ Sun, 09 May 2021 12:29:06 +0000 http://ssir-consult.cofluence.co/?p=18835

Challenge

The space and spatial sectors are facing a shortage of talent in Australia. In the space sector, the Australian Space Agency is responding with the goal of creating 20,000 new jobs by 2030, whereas the spatial sector has several dedicated initiatives to increase the pipeline of professionals: in the spatial sector it is estimated that by 2025, there will be a shortfall of approximately 1,300 graduate or licensed surveyors and 300 geospatial specialists with university degrees. Looking at the sector make up, the spatial sector is currently male dominated, with only one quarter of the spatial workforce being female and with significant pay gaps between men and women. More broadly, there is limited evidence of cultural diversity, indigenous employment, or people with disability in the sector. Data for the nascent Australian space sector is scarce, however envisaged to be similar to the spatial sector, as skilled space professionals emerge primarily from STEM fields.

OPPORTUNITY FOR GROWTH

For the space and spatial sectors to be able to sustainably grow, innovate and deliver leading and useful research in the coming years, a diverse workforce will be needed. This will include diversity of background – starting with gender – but also diversity of thinking approaches.

Peak bodies in both the space and spatial sector are strongly advocating for this change and making progress, either individually (e.g. Australian Space Agency having reached 50/50 gender balance) or in a coordinated fashion (e.g. the Space, Spatial and Surveying Diversity Leadership Network). For those efforts to be maximised and leveraged, coordination across both sectors is paramount and would result in increased benefits.

ACTIONS

1. Establish a coordinating diversity and inclusion (D&I) group for the space, spatial and surveying sectors with the mandate to leverage, amplify and expand existing successful D&I initiatives and actions plans at sector level. The group should have representation from the peak bodies of each sector, and include a working party resourced to benchmark, monitor and report on the state of D&I in the sector on a regular basis.

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Improving the growth environment for SMEs & large corporates http://ssir-consult.cofluence.co/5-04/ Sun, 09 May 2021 12:25:50 +0000 http://ssir-consult.cofluence.co/?p=18831

Challenge

SMEs face three fundamental and enduring problems:

    1. Access to markets to warrant expansion;
    2. Access to capital to fund expansion;
    3.  Time, typically of founders and CEOs, to develop new markets, to make connections with companies with which collaboration would be to mutual benefit, and to develop compelling responses to tender invitations and grant opportunities.

An additional issue is the difficulty in winning contracts, especially from governments, which tend to favour larger companies that have a much stronger chance of being in business in five and ten years’ time than do many SMEs.

SMEs are critically dependent on cash flow for their month-on-month survival. They need certainty around repeat business in order to be able to plan, invest and grow. SMEs value highly purchase orders from government. A purchase order indicates a degree of confidence by government in the product or service on offer as well as in the company itself.

Almost all of the larger companies (Primes) that operate in Australia in the space and spatial sectors are subsidiaries of global corporations with their headquarters offshore. The focus of the Australian subsidiaries is sales and sales support. Local boards and CEOs have limited discretion and major decisions are routinely referred to the offshore parent for decision. The principal task of these companies is to win major Government contracts (including in the Defence domain) to both supply new platforms and systems and then to sustain them. These companies employ many Australians directly and others through sub-contract arrangements.

Some Primes report difficulties in recruiting suitable staff locally. Some, perhaps many, Australian SMEs struggle to meet the exacting standards for induction into the supply chain programs of the Primes.

Many SMEs do not have a good understanding of the quality and other standards that they must meet and sustain to sell directly to governments or to become integral to the supply chains of the Primes. Others understand but are deterred by the time and dollar costs associated with overcoming these barriers.

The principal difficulty faced by any large company operating in Australia is the small size of the Australian market which engenders intense competition in the local market

OPPORTUNITY FOR GROWTH

As noted in a previous section, opportunities for growth in the Australian market are limited by its small size overall and its distributed nature. Larger companies, such as the Primes in the Defence market, have the resources and the patience to shape the market through routine engagement with Ministers and their staff and senior officials. Conversely there is little evidence of similar high-level contact and collaboration amongst executives of companies across the space and geospatial sectors.

With the announcement in 2020 by Defence of its forward budgets for space and spatial totalling $10 billion and with the renewed imperative of the nation to significantly enhance its sovereignty and resilience throughout its important supply chains, and to do so at an accelerated pace, there is a real opportunity for significant restructuring of the space and spatial industry sectors.

Formation of clusters of companies that bring critical mass along the supply chain in the short to medium term around large defence procurements would see an acceleration of the growth the domestic private sector. It will increase the opportunity for innovation as start-ups and SME’s bring a welcome degree of innovation whilst helping insulate the risk of lack of critical mass by partnering with larger SMEs and primes. In the medium to long term this form of restructuring will increase the likelihood of mergers to form larger companies consolidating the private sector and allowing it to take its place as a mature contributor to both domestic and international markets, civilian and defence.

ACTIONS

The following actions are proposed to improve the prospects of companies large and small, that are operating in Australia’s space and spatial markets.

1. Develop a coordinated national approach for the defence and the civilian sectors in contributing to the design and development of a national space and spatial ecosystem, focusing on policies and practices that facilitate cluster formation in the short to medium term and mergers in the longer term.

2. Foster a culture of collaboration where practicable and commercially sensible to do so within and across the space and spatial sectors, especially where this improves supply chains. This might be achieved by the Space Industry Association of Australia (SIAA) and the Spatial Industries Business Association and Geospatial Information and Technology Association (SIBA – GITA) developing specific programs to facilitate collaborative activities.

3. Introduce companies that work in the space and spatial sectors to each other in a more deliberate and constructive way than may have occurred in the past. These activities might be facilitated by the SIAA and SIBA – GITA.

4. Encourage SMEs in both sectors to understand what it takes to become an accredited member of the supply chains of the Primes and to encourage them to apply for supply chain improvement grants, such as those that are administered by the Centre for Defence Industry Capability (CDIC). In this regard, Australia’s experience with the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program is instructive. For some Australian companies that are now embedded in the supply chain of this aircraft, the journey has taken at least five and, in some cases, 10 years. Patience and commitment are required. Not all companies will want to make such a commitment and some that do, may not be able to afford to do so. However, those that do, in the high stakes, high precision worlds of aerospace and space engineering and spatial data manipulation, the rewards are likely to be consistent, growth focussed and long lasting.

5. Encourage space and spatial companies to apply for grants from sources about which they may not be familiar, including the Centre for Defence Industry Capability (CDIC). Such encouragement, backed by relevant information, might be provided by SIAA and SIBA – GITA.

6. Develop an export strategy for the products and services offered by Australian space and spatial companies. SIAA and SIBA – GITA might work with AUSTRADE to develop this strategy.

7. Prepare a carefully argued and well-documented submission for presentation to the review of the Australian Space Agency that is anticipated to occur in the latter part of 2021, extending in to 2022.

8. Develop a taxonomy of the space and spatial industries to support clear an accurate capture of changes across these sectors. The current 2006 ANZSIC (ANZ Standard Industry Classification) codes used by the ABS for capturing economic growth and business growth sees space and spatial referenced as subsidiaries in a number of other headings. This makes it difficult for the nation to adequately track progress and activity in these two vital sectors.It also increases the opportunity for confusion, the risk of misclassification or even being left out. It would be helpful to have this issue rectified.

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Spatial digital twin http://ssir-consult.cofluence.co/5-23/ Sun, 09 May 2021 12:02:29 +0000 http://ssir-consult.cofluence.co/?p=18806

Challenge

Spatial Digital Twins are an advanced spatially accurate digital representation of the real world and are emerging as a powerful tool to help people improve their understanding of our physical environment, make better-informed decisions, build predictive capability, and offer just-in-time analytics and products which should lead to improved outcomes and benefits. Digital Twins assume that the value of data is vastly improved when it is aggregated and then distributed and shared for decision making. Conceptually digital twins can mean a model of an object, a physical asset, a process or a complex environment such as a city, but in this section we are referring to the built and natural environments.

Today Spatial Digital Twins are operating at various levels of maturity and complexity from individual built structure both above and below ground, through to the development of an accurately positioned city model across most major sectors of the economy. However Spatial Digital Twins are recognised as being at a relatively early stage of maturity right now, with much more potential value to be unlocked as their use cases mature. The challenge is in understanding the complexity of applications across industry sectors, the level of maturity of the digital twins in terms of quality and value, and the frameworks which enable data sharing and governance.

The drivers for Spatial Digital Twins include, aging infrastructure, resource distribution, connected and autonomous transport, mandatory digitalisation of cadastral information, and a critical need to address urban risks such as changing climate and rising inequality.

To drive a consistent approach to digital twins in the built environment, ANZLIC has developed the Principles for Spatially Enabled Digital Twins of the Built and Natural Environment in Australia which describe high-level principles, benefits and use cases for spatially enabled digital twins in the Australian context. The principles also outline the vision of a federated ecosystem of securely shared spatial digital twins and their value for the Australian economy.

OPPORTUNITY FOR GROWTH

  • Spatial Digital Twins are an essential component of the overall digital transformation agenda across government and industry, which is advancing rapidly
  • Spatially-enabled Digital Twins can be designed to better plan, manage, and maintain resources in urban environments.
  • Place based or spatially accurate digital twins are driving the need for better access to high quality data to allow advanced visualisation and analytics.
  • As data availability increases, along with compute power and cloud infrastructures this will enable the development of models or digital twins and the increasingly complex simulations of the built environment, whether it be city models or transport networks, or fine element method (FEM) based process models or designs.
  • In 2009, the number of people living in urban areas (3.42 billion) surpassed the number living in rural areas (3.41 billion), and since then the world has become more urban than rural.
  • Currently the UN Sustainable Development Goal #11 for sustainable cities and communities cannot be achieved without significantly transforming the way we build and manage our urban spaces
  • The key opportunity is that while data frameworks are in their infancy (relatively speaking) and offer potential to integrate, current and future data streams to bring together different models we are a long way from the vision of Spatial Digital Twins are available as open data and simulations using open standards at all levels of governments

ACTIONS

1. It is essential that Australia collaborate with the local and global initiatives to develop the use of this technology. These organisations include Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), International Standards Organisation (ISO), the US based Digital Twin Consortium and The Smart Cities Council. The Australia and New Zealand chapter of The Smart Cities Council is stewarding the development of a Digital Twin Strategy for Australia and New Zealand. Their goal for the Strategy is to create the conditions for a thriving Digital Twin market place in the region. OGC is working closely with ISO on standards development with active working groups, while the Digital Twin Consortium is still in its formational stage, but given its membership it has the potential to have a powerful influence on the way forward.

2. There has been a fundamental shift in data science from data to models as the knowledge of the world increases which includes digital twins. A key part of the solution is increasing model interoperability and integrated modelling with related technologies including BIM, underground assets AI and ML to enable new forms of visualization, learning, and reasoning. Within Australia, while participating in the above initiatives, it is essential to identify the principles, data frameworks and data governance, including standards which will enable data sharing and use.

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Critical (foundational) spatial data http://ssir-consult.cofluence.co/5-22/ Sun, 09 May 2021 12:02:19 +0000 http://ssir-consult.cofluence.co/?p=18805

Challenge

It is timely to consider redefining and expanding the existing list of Foundation Spatial Data Framework themes and the systems that support their creation and use to ensure they are optimised for three and four dimensional needs for a future sensor and information powered world. Migration of thought from the more traditional spatial data infrastructure concepts of data storage and access, to more advanced capabilities including automatically creating, sharing, curating, delivering, and using knowledge (not just data or information) in support of the emerging digital economy and the rise of spatially-aware and equipped citizens must occur. It advances the thinking from information product generation to the production of insights. It also embodies the provisioning of predictive analytics capacity in real-time for any user in any location whilst mobile.

ANZLIC defines Foundation Spatial Data as the authoritative geographic information that underpins, or can add significant value to, any other information; and supports evidence-based decisions across government, industry and the community. These data can be described as base spatial layers required by most users and are generally not derived from other spatial layers. They are authoritative, accurate, and easily discoverable and accessible. Traditionally these data are held and maintained by Government although this is changing. In Australia these tend to be maintained by state governments and aggregated to a national level through the foundation spatial data framework (FSDF) which provides a common reference for the assembly and maintenance of these data to serve the widest possible variety of users. The FSDF aims to deliver a national coverage of the best available, most current, authoritative source of foundation spatial data which is standardised and quality controlled. The data themes are: Address, Administrative Boundaries, Positioning, Place Names, Property, Imagery, Transport, Elevation and Depth, and Land Cover and Land Use.

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Figure 8: Conceptual View of Foundation Spatial Data Framework (Source: ANZLIC)

They are managed as a suite of datasets by custodians across government, coordinated through ANZLIC.

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Figure 9: FSDF Defined Themes and Datasets (Source: ANZLIC)

However, the ten FSDF themes listed above were established about a decade ago. There has been subsequent work at a global level towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s), by the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UNGGIM). In 2018 they determined the global fundamental geospatial data themes as: Global Geodetic Reference Framework; Addresses; Buildings and Settlements; Elevation and Depth; Functional Areas; Geographical Names; Geology and Soils; Land Cover and Land Use; Land Parcels; Ortho- imagery; Physical infrastructure; Population Distribution; Transport Network; and Water.

It is timely to consider redefining and expanding the existing list of FSDF themes to align with those of the SDG’s, and consider those which will provide for future challenges of three and four dimensions. Several jurisdictions already have work underway, however this has not yet had national agreement. ANZLIC has identified as one of its 2020-24 strategic priorities the modernisation of the FSDF and specifically:

  • Modernise foundation spatial data to 3D and 4D (time) digital formats.
  • Streamline processes to collect and supply spatial data to users across the full data lifecycle: capture, procure, access, standardise, maintain and value-add.
  • Enable better data management practices, focusing on governance, privacy and cyber security, discoverability and accessibility.
  • Drive development and adoption of open spatial data standards that align with and inform international standards.

OPPORTUNITY FOR GROWTH

  • Future proofing the FSDF data themes by expanding them to account for a future with operating digital twins and applications which will be built on emerging technologies such as edge computing.
  • Expanding the FSDF to be able to operate in real or near real time and service digital twins and related priority applications. This will include improving processes which automate the collection, distribution and display of data. This also includes factoring in the development of analytics onboard satellites to optimise near-real time processing and availability
  • Flexible governance frameworks and IT infrastructures which authenticate private and community data providers. Government will need to be inclusive of trusted private data providers, such as utilities.
  • Building community awareness to further enable FSDF like data sets currently locked up and not being used, to enhance utility of current data sets.
    Ensuring that ML/AI, and other new technology developments are optimally used in the creation of FSDF.

ACTIONS

1. Establish a working group to further explore the opportunities for growth comprising GA and FrontierSI.

2. Map needs of sectors and organisations that service Australia’s critical infrastructure and systems of national significance (as defined by the Department of Home Affairs) against what the FSDF can provide in its current and in future forms. To be undertaken by the Space Cross-sectoral Interest Group under the guidance of the Department of Home Affairs and the Australian Space Agency.

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Priority data stores http://ssir-consult.cofluence.co/5-21/ Sun, 09 May 2021 12:02:09 +0000 http://ssir-consult.cofluence.co/?p=18804

Challenge

Australia possesses many significant data stores within government agencies and research organisations (eg GA’s DEA, the National Computational Infrastructure, jurisdictional agency systems, and NCRIS facilities to name a few) which have been created fit for a specific purpose. These have been or are in the process of being migrated to cloud environments, mostly owned and operated by multi-national private sector providers, some of which are located off-shore.The use of cloud infrastructures has increased exposure in terms of sovereignty, security, fragmentation, non-optimised critical mass, duplication, barriers to access, data currency, and the role of the private sector in public-private partnership. Optimising data storage and prioritising the custodianship and physical location offers the opportunity for improvement. It is timely to examine the risks to national spatial data stores, infrastructure, systems and analytics, including the physical location of the systems on-shore and off-shore.

Another key issue is to inventory data stores related to Critical infrastructure, ie. determine which of Australia’s data stores need to be afforded special protection status, with increased governance and security, and overseen by formal data policy (including access protocols etc).

There is also an opportunity, once defined, to look at icon examples to build and use other nationally enabling infrastructure. A good example is DEA, which has increasing government and private use within Australia, and is also well regarded globally as a leading example of open data cubes. There are other examples of coordinated data collections and data stores, such as the square kilometre array, which is a next-generation radio telescope and will yield data volumes of approximately 300 PB per telescope per year during full science operations, and the data will be produced at a rate of approximately 0.5–1TB per second.

And what of the potential to create and manage datastores on-board in space? Is this considered a priority?

OPPORTUNITY FOR GROWTH

Perhaps one recent and highly relevant example which illustrates a number of the issues outlined above is in the use of information in relation to preparing and responding to bushfires. The National Natural Disaster Arrangements Royal Commission (Bushfires Royal Commission) made the following recommendations in their report, primarily within the chapter on supporting better decisions:

  • Rec 4.1: Australian, state and territory governments should prioritise the implementation of harmonised data governance and national data standards.
  • Rec 4.4: The National Disaster Risk Information Services Capability should include tools and systems to support operational and strategic decision making, including integrated climate and disaster risk scenarios tailored to the various needs of relevant industry sectors and end users.
  • Whilst not a recommendation, the reports states that “Australian, state and territory governments should explore the feasibility and practicalities of developing and maintaining nationally consistent:
    • Assessments of frequency, intensity and spatial distribution of natural hazards in Australia, and
    • Projections of the frequency, intensity and spatial distribution of natural hazards in Australia.”
  • The report also makes reference to GA’s Australian Exposure Information Platform (AEIP) as a tool to support decision makers understand state based exposure to natural hazards but notes that this tools does not currently provide information through a geospatial mapping layer. This tools and the underlying database, the National Exposure Information System (NEXIS), “.. should be maintained and improved”.
  • Rec 4.7: Australian, state and territory governments should continue to develop a greater capacity to collect and share standardised and comprehensive natural disaster impact data.

ACTIONS

1. An audit and prioritisation of critical data priority stores that underpin national decision making. One example is Bushfire response.

2. Development of secure data stores with appropriate collaborative infrastructures that facilitate data access, with appropriate privacy and ethics requirements. This should also encompass appropriate governance including legal mechanisms, regulation frameworks, and ethics guidelines which facilitate collaborations between government, universities and industry in relation to data ethics, transparency, autonomy, and replicability.

3. The importance of standards and common frameworks for collection, storage and delivery of spatial data and that appropriate metadata needs to be emphasised to underpin management and discovery of the data and for users to determine how the data can be used and reused.

4. Consideration should also be given to required private data stores as well as shared infrastructures driven by citizen contributions.

5. Coincident computational information processing capability will need to be developed in tandem with appropriate sharing frameworks that allow researchers to collaborate and innovate.

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Augmented-Assured-Australian (AAA) PNT http://ssir-consult.cofluence.co/5-20/ Sun, 09 May 2021 12:02:02 +0000 http://ssir-consult.cofluence.co/?p=18803

Challenge

The rapid and increasing uptake of PNT applications across multiple sectors of the Australian economy shows no sign of slowing, with PNT capabilities being integrated as an operational dependency for myriad applications, as well as critical infrastructure systems such as power utilities, financial services, mobile networks and transportation. Indeed, the augmentation of global constellations with regional systems such as SBAS has only led to greater reliance on PNT, as demonstrated by federal investment into GA’s Positioning Australia program.

Consequently, to capitalise on these demands for a PNT system which is accessible, accurate and available for all Australian sectors, a major challenge will be developing an indigenous capability that ensures PNT across the nation by improving its resilience, robustness and trustworthiness over the long-term.

OPPORTUNITY FOR GROWTH

The importance of GNSS PNT capability to the success of Australia’s future has been noted previously, for example in the Australian Civil Space Strategy, where it was identified as a high priority area for growth and investment, and the Australia Academy of Science’s (AAS) 2017: A vision for space science and technology in Australia.

Positioning data derived from GNSS is considered by ANZLIC as one of Australia’s fundamental data sets, and the AAS has commissioned a new working group for PNT. These all build on previous work started in 2012 to develop the Australian Strategic Plan For GNSS, which proposed a strategic direction for Australia’s PNT that would lead to significant benefits including ‘enhanced productivity, job creation, industry growth, the identification of new export markets, increased competitiveness, improved workplace safety, enhanced national security, strengthened international linkages and a dynamic R&D sector’.

Accordingly, the 2012 Strategic Plan set-out four strategic initiatives:

(1) Ensure leadership for the Australian GNSS community;

(2) Adopt a whole-of-nation approach to a sustainable, multi-GNSS-enabled positioning infrastructure;

(3) Mitigate vulnerabilities in existing and future GNSS infrastructure; and

(4) Capitalise on Australia’s unique geopolitical and geographic advantages.

While there has been significant progress within Australia since 2021 towards achieving these four objectives, there is still considerable opportunity from harnessing the future economic, social and environmental impacts of PNT, especially given the evolution of PNT applications, advances in GNSS constellations and their visibility across Australia, therefore it is felt that the time is right to renew the Strategic Plan.

Innovating new capabilities

  • Developing a sovereign capability to monitor and assess both the state of error sources affecting GNSS (as will be realised through the Positioning Australia program) and its inherent integrity is critical not only for positioning and navigation but also for the multitude of applications requiring the timing component currently supplied by GNSS.
  • Delivering novel GNSS products that further contribute to our understanding of the dynamic atmosphere for weather forecasting, climatological studies, and the behaviour of the ionosphere and space weather. These products, such as GNSS derived models of atmospheric density, could afford greater resilience to our sovereign PNT capabilities. Additionally, the dynamic impacts of atmospheric effects on PNT are also experienced by other sectors within the growth pillars (Earth Observation, Satellite Communications and Space Domain Awareness (SDA)), so clear collaborative partnerships and knowledge exchange pathways are required to ensure that findings are benefitted across all industry sectors.
  • Developing products and services essential for ensuring assured GNSS information for mission-critical and safety-critical PNT applications such as automated industrial machines, robotics, driverless vehicles, aircraft and infrastructure dependent on timing. Inventing, developing and delivering Australia-specific critical PNT integrity messages especially ones pertaining to high accuracy PNT services (such as RTK and PPP), could later become an industry-leading innovation to export regionally and globally further raising Australia’s PNT reputation.

Improving infrastructure, mitigating vulnerabilities and assuring access

  • Development of assured PNT capabilities for Australia – meaning one that is suitably protected and secured (with authentication and possibly encryption) – to deliver the required PNT performances under adverse conditions. Assured PNT impacts all aspects of space (both downward and outward looking), and the growing spatial sector.
  • Cultivating resilience across our PNT capabilities to better protect against both unintentional and purposeful interference and spoofing across all segments, including but not limited to known incidents such as solar flares, cybersecurity breaches, erroneous almanac uploads and unlikely ‘black swan’ events.
  • Design and implementation of sub-metre (and even decimetre-level) accuracy GNSS systems based on low-cost mass-market GNSS receivers, enhanced via emerging terrestrial 5G telecommunications infrastructure delivering augmentation information for enhanced accuracy and integrity. Ideally, these GNSS products would be developed locally and be fully compatible with Australian PNT information and services.
  • Developing and facilitating the integration of space-borne GNSS receivers aboard Australian satellites to support more applications of small satellites for communications, earth observation and PNT, and even on missions beyond Earth orbit, for so-called space service volume navigation.
  •  Augmenting the GNSS space segment, for example using select LEO satellites equipped with appropriate payloads, could provide increased availability of the more advanced PNT techniques (RTK, network RTK, SSR and PPP-RTK). Indeed the provision of sovereign PNT integrity messages (determined for Australia by Australia) transmitted by Australian space infrastructure, must be complemented by simultaneous transmission through secondary terrestrial communications as a robust delivery method.
  • Collaborating across federal and state governments to incorporate PNT infrastructure (terrestrial and orbital) and generated services (corrections, integrity, interference) within the Critical Infrastructure Network as part of an ongoing Risk Assessment and Mitigation program.
  • Develop real-time capability to detect, measure, geolocate and ultimately mitigate sources of interference and spoofing to GNSS across Australia and realise it as a ‘Nationwide GNSS Interference Monitoring Infrastructure’. Such an infrastructure could be hosted and coordinated between federal government and Defence, and report incidents of interference alongside ongoing integrity messages to the wider community, further facilitating the adoption and trust in PNT for Australia, by Australians.
  • The successful augmentation of current GNSS with alternate (non-GNSS) PNT coming from emerging technologies promises even greater levels of resilience, robustness and trust around assured PNT for space and spatial sectors.

ACTIONS

Several fundamental activities such as SBAS and NPIC are already progressing under GA’s leadership of their Positioning Australia program; by leveraging these deliverables, opportunities exist for significant growth across industries and international borders, with several having potential global outreach/impact.

To capitalise on the numerous opportunities that PNT holds for Australia, a number of governance and policy recommendations are made to facilitate engagement and ensure adoption.

1. Developing an updated ‘GNSS Strategic Plan for Promoting Enhanced PNT Capabilities across Australia’ detailing industry strategy and aligned incentive mechanisms to facilitate development of high-tech GNSS-related products, services and workforce by local companies and organisations, which endeavour to adopt the new PNT capabilities that will become available across the nation. Leadership of this strategy development will require disciplined coordination across government, Defence, industry and education.

2. Forming a multi-industry group being responsible for monitoring, marketing and evangelising all strategic PNT plans developed and in action across Australia, and providing guidance where necessary, to provide consistency, ensure clarity and eliminate duplication through effective collaboration. Ideally, this could take the form of a ‘Strategic Coordination & Engagement Group’ or ‘Task Force’ comprising federal, academic and industry representatives, would be mandated to the new GNSS Strategic Plan, and be an official first point of contact for both Australian and international queries around the PNT innovations.

3. Sustained long-term investing in training and education, as well as research and innovation, to ensure that our industry sectors and workforce possess the capacity, competency and empowerment to take advantage of the opportunities offered by an assured, resilient and augmented PNT across Australia.

4. Mobilise the PNT ecosystem by boosting investments in the research, development, and commercialisation pathways for local companies and industry to create novel high-tech PNT products & services which complement and augment GNSS (connecting upstream space segments with the big primes through SBAS for example, with the downstream markets), ultimately creating new sectors and jobs. These innovations include new quantum sensors, terrestrial positioning systems, vision and imaging sensors, signals-of-opportunity, chip-scale atomic clocks, inertial measurement units and others, along with the sensor fusion engines required to successfully integrate all these measurements together with existing PNT. Mechanisms should also be created to leverage Defence’s funding, IP and developments around assured and resilient PNT, into the civilian consumer marketplace through appropriate fast-track commercialisation pathways. New service industries utilising PNT should be fostered and encouraged to promote nationally and export internationally.

5. Encouraging international collaboration with key partners on prospective plans for new PNT capabilities – both space- and ground-based. Strengthen Australia’s capability to understand, analyse and leverage strategic advantages and opportunities of partnering on emerging technologies.

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Ubiquitous & low-cost connectivity http://ssir-consult.cofluence.co/5-18/ Sun, 09 May 2021 12:01:47 +0000 http://ssir-consult.cofluence.co/?p=18801

Challenge

What is the potential benefits of a new class of service that provides low volume data connectivity at low cost (cost of terminal or cost of service, including IoT)?

For decades Australia has pioneered the application of bandwidth and power efficient communications towards advanced satellite communications system. Historically this leading research has resulted in commercialisation by other nations.

Space is on the cusp of a new approach to delivery of satellite communications services with a shift away from television broadcast from geo-stationary satellites towards the provision of high-speed internet services from large constellations of smaller satellites in low earth orbit.
This shift from “GEO” to “LEO” will change the dynamics of the satellite communications business and result in ubiquitous and low-cost connectivity.

Technology is also being developed to provide commodity connectivity (i.e. pervasive and low cost) for a range of new application built on the paradigm of Internet of Things.

Australian companies (both based here and listed here) are among the global leaders in this new class of service that could see the cost of short packet-based communication from anywhere in the world to centralised cloud infrastructure approach $0 dollars per message. This dramatic decline in price will fundamentally change the nature of global satellite communications away broadcast and fixed service as the main growth markets.

OPPORTUNITY FOR GROWTH

New market opportunities potentially exist in traditionally non-space sectors – e.g. agriculture, mining and mineral exploration, water management, energy markets, environmental management, emergency response amongst others.

The market potential for embedded low data connectivity could be speculated to approach the market volumes for embedded PNT devices. If this speculation is accurate then it is critical that this value be captured, where-ever possible, by Australian manufacturers and that Australia develop entrepreneurial and engineering skill in the downstream application of satellite IoT connectivity.

ACTIONS

1. (TBD) to develop and deliver a space IoT awareness campaign to grow this sector. This could include innovation competitions targeted at industry, universities, research centres, maker communities etc.

2. (TBD) to ensure the Australian electronics manufacturing sector has a high awareness of the potential growth opportunity from capturing the emerging segment for low cost, embedded satellite messaging/IoT user devices.

3. (TBD) to fund studies aimed at identifying spatial sector and adjacent sector opportunities for space based IoT devices and services.

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Earth Observation from space http://ssir-consult.cofluence.co/5-17/ Sun, 09 May 2021 12:01:39 +0000 http://ssir-consult.cofluence.co/?p=18800

Challenge

Virtually all of Australia’s EO capabilities are supplied by other nations or international companies. Australia’s dependence on these satellites, the data they provide and the services that they support is growing rapidly and covers a very broad range of needs, both civilian and defence. Australia has developed a world class satellite imagery analytics and applications capability but has only nascent capability in the upstream supply chain areas of satellite and sensor design, build, launch, task and control. Australia is therefore highly dependent on the rest of the world to provide for its immediate and long-term needs.

OPPORTUNITY FOR GROWTH

Australia currently relies on about 20-25 remote sensing satellites for its imagery and sensing needs from space. None of these are Australian owned. With the nascent but growing space start-up industry in Australia now comprising at least 80 companies and the Australia SME sector set for substantial growth there is the opportunity to facilitate a coordinated dual use (civilian – defence) approach to the strategic design and deployment of a constellation of satellites that are built up over the next decade to service the high priority, sovereign needs of Australia.

For example, what is the optimum combination of optical, Near- Infra red (NIR), mid infra-red (MIR) for fire detection and monitoring both now, based on current capabilities, and over the next decade? Continuous monitoring of fires, at operational resolutions, inter-jurisdictionally and nation-wide during catastrophic fire seasons has proven a challenge for Australia. Could this be addressed by a geo-stationary satellite with optical, NIR, MIR and hyperspectral capabilities, with sensor(s) of sufficient ground resolution and signal to noise ratios, coupled with next generation on-board and terrestrial analytics? This is but one of many examples that can be put forward to illustrate the opportunity before Australia of moving from an opportunistic user of the satellites that others choose to launch and operate to a nation of strategic, long term intent.

ACTIONS

1. Australia to investigate the potential for a national approach to the long-term development and deployment of a constellation of satellites, and their supporting systems, to service high priority needs in both the civilian and defence sectors, including examining the role Australia could play at all stages of the space and spatial supply chain. This investigation could usefully be undertaken by a working group drawn from Defence, the Australian Space Agency, CSIRO, Geoscience Australia, SIAA, SIBA-GITA, EOA and SmartSat CRC

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Ground infrastructure & spectrum access http://ssir-consult.cofluence.co/5-16/ Sun, 09 May 2021 12:01:31 +0000 http://ssir-consult.cofluence.co/?p=18799

Note this issue is covered in part within the ASA Communication Technologies and Services Roadmap 2021–2030.

Challenge

The ability to communicate with satellites and downlink data is vital to the growth of the Australian space sector. Without sufficient spectrum and the capacity to downlink large amounts of data many of the emerging growth areas in the space and spatial domain will be significantly constrained. Australia needs to ensure that its companies have reliable access to spectrum and suitable ground infrastructure for data downlinks to maximise the growth of the Australian space sector.

Space spectrum is an increasingly precious commodity that is being challenged on a number of fronts even as the demand for space spectrum is growing significantly. Atmospheric water vapour causes signal attenuation which generally increases with frequency requiring higher power transmitters and better receivers to maintain link margins. C-band spectrum was chosen for GEO satellite links as an optimum spectrum/power trade-off, but C-band is highly desired by
the terrestrial mobile phone industry. The potential to generate high license fees from the mobile phone industry prompted the US FCC to move satellites out of most C-band spectrum in the
US and the rest of the world is likely to follow. There is a growing issue of how to value satellite spectrum across all relevant satellite bands to ensure it is maintained for growing satellite services in the face of potentially higher spectrum license revenues available from the growing mobile phone industry.

At the same time the significant growth in satellites is creating challenges for new operators to find spectrum for their services without interfering with existing systems. This is particularly acute in LEO with ever increasing satellite constellations and has resulted in both ground and space-based systems which inhibit transmission at times to avoid interference such as when in line of site of GEO satellites. Another emerging challenge is finding spectrum to maintain communications with the growing bandwidth needs of spacecraft in cis-lunar and trans-lunar orbits associated with the return to the Moon without affecting the communications capability and growth of satellites in LEO, MEO and GEO orbits around Earth.

Spatial satellites are not only growing in number but also in sophistication of sensors which are producing increasing amounts of data. This higher fidelity data enables more sophisticated analysis but requires significantly more bandwidth to downlink the information. There is a risk
that much of this useful data will be lost without the ground infrastructure and spectrum to enable these higher bandwidth downlinks.

OPPORTUNITY FOR GROWTH

The challenges of accommodating more satellite systems within existing satellite spectrum as well as finding spectrum for the increasing amounts of data to be downlinked is driving significant development activity. Australia has world class capability in ground infrastructure and has opportunities as a location for ground networks for high volume data downlinks. Australia is well located geographically as a downlink site for spatial data downlinks from LEO satellites passing over Asia as well as offering an alternate site for data downlinks from Europe and North America. Australia’s wide geographic footprint offers the opportunity for eastern and western ground network sites that can capture more LEO satellite passes for downlinks. Spectrum congestion is leading to development of additional bands such as V-band as well as the use of optical links where Australia has significant capability. Development of new waveforms to enable shared spectrum and on-board satellite processing to minimise data downlink size are other growth areas where Australia has expertise.

ACTIONS

1. Create strong information campaign to raise awareness across all government departments of the critical strategic importance of satellite spectrum for the space and spatial industry and how erosion of satellite spectrum will reduce the availability of space and spatial services for their department. This information campaign needs to be of sufficient size to counterbalance the ongoing appeals for access to satellite spectrum by the mobile phone industry. This awareness campaign needs to make a compelling argument that spectrum for the space and spatial industry is of critical importance even though it might not generate the type of revenue that the mobile phone industry might pay for spectrum licenses, at least in the short to medium term.

2. Australia should play an active role in international fora to preserve key spectrum for space and spatial activities including in higher spectrum bands and for optical links.

3. Explore all opportunities for Australia to provide high speed data downlink sites for space and spatial data particularly for high data downlinks from Asian, European and American satellites. Regional and international spatial fora as well as commercial operators should be made aware of the benefits of data downlink infrastructure in Australia.

4. Encourage and support Australian development of waveforms and spectrum sharing techniques as well as on-board processing techniques to maximise the downlinking of essential data.

5. Encourage and support Australian development of optical downlink capabilities and infrastructure as well as exploration of higher RF bands such as V-band (40–70 GHz) and E-band (70–90 GHz).

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