Kepler Space awarded funding for smartEarth initiative

Kepler Space Inc. of Ottawa has been awarded $500,000 funding under the Canadian Space Agency smartEarth initiative. During this project, a Canadian Ground Motion Service (C-GMS) for Transportation Infrastructure Monitoring will be created, and is based on Kepler’s prototype for monitoring large geographic areas for mm ground deformation.

During the CSA-supported project, C-GMS will be streamlined and validated for use in railway and bridge infrastructure monitoring systems, focusing on the Quebec City – Windsor corridor and the Hudson Bay Railway in northern Manitoba. Innovation is provided primarily by the ability to cover large areas, providing regional, provincial or national coverage. This is made possible by time series of Sentinel-1 data and by streamlined big data analytics. An Artificial Intelligence component able of predictive modelling of infrastructure health will be added to the service.

Collaborators from the National Research Council and the University of Ottawa will support Kepler and additional collaborators from private sector infrastructure monitoring specialists are being sought.