Ray20

Previous Project

Matured computer vision and connectivity solutions for autonomous Earth Observation and GIS

Ray20

4+

Million Square Kilometers

With Ray20, we explored how to provide an enormous amount of high definition imagery per day using aircraft

100+

Revisits

Each day with Ray20 we were able to revisit key, high demand regions

$9.84

Billion

The Geospatial Information System (GIS) market in 2017 - and it’s growing rapidly

"Aircraft offer an amazing opportunity to expand the multi-layer architecture of Airbus’ geospatial platforms (space, aerial and terrestrial), ensuring our leading imagery and data services platforms and applications deliver the next generation of analytics and insights."

Ben Wilson

Former Project Executive, Ray20

01Mission

Ray20 matured computer vision and connectivity solutions for autonomous Earth Observation and GIS

The Ray20 team sought to prove that it was possible and valuable to capture imagery on aircraft at a higher quality than satellite platforms and several orders of magnitude lower in cost. To do this, the team aimed to build scalable, certifiable and autonomous remote sensing systems using Airbus’ Aircraft as a Sensing System (AaaSS). The goal was to see whether their solution could provide Airbus customers in a wide range of industries with high quality, high cadence images and analytics of Earth to manage, support, analyze and improve their operations.

02Services

Over the course of the project, Ray20:

  • Drove the maturation of computer vision and connectivity solutions and other core technologies for autonomous Earth Observation missions and Geospatial Information Systems, leveraging Acubed’s flight test aircraft to analyze the environment it covers
  • Explored how to leverage aircraft for Earth Observation spatial and temporal cadence by:
    • Capturing key GIS data at unrivaled revisit rates
    • Integrating software solutions
    • Fully automating the end to end processes

Geospatial Information Systems are transforming our understanding of the world, and the Ray20 team was at the heart of this revolution.

03Learn More

Check out our blog and publications for more in-depth details about Ray20

Nov 10, 2020  •  Ray20

Ray20’s Vision Culminates at Acubed

There are many points and counterpoints when it comes to pursuing innovation in times of crisis such as what we’re experiencing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Innovations that

Oct 20, 2020  •  Ray20

Ray20’s Promising Initial AI Edge Imaging System Results

Thanks to the magic of the iPhone, everyday, high quality imagery is so familiar to us that we often take it for granted. But capturing and analyzing high resolution aerial images…

Sept 29, 2020  •  Ray20

The Road to Open Air: How Ray20 Prepared for Its First Flight Tests

It’s been an exciting (and exhausting!) few months for the Ray20 team since we announced the launch of our project in June, and we’ve been laser-focused on our goal to build scalable…

Sept 14, 2020  •  Ray20

Remote Sensing for a Post-COVID World

As we said at the outset of our project, the Ray20 team is passionate about Geographic Information Systems (GIS). As defined by National Geographic, GIS are essentially systems…

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