Ursa Space Systems and Hawkeye 360 fuse radar, RF

SAN ANTONIO — Geospatial knowledge analytics firm Ursa House Methods is becoming a member of forces with Hawkeye 360 to supply new merchandise combining artificial aperture radar and radio frequency knowledge.

“Fusing radar and indicators knowledge is a logical step,” Derek Edinger, Ursa co-founder and chief technique officer, informed SpaceNews on the 2019 GEOINT Symposium. “It’s good for locating ships in addition to terrestrial exercise.”

Business companies and authorities companies typically establish ships by means of their Automated Identification System (AIS) transponders. Ships conducting criminality, like fishing or oil transport in defiance of embargoes, both function with out transponders or flip them off to evade detection.

Hawkeye 360 can nonetheless discover the ships by homing in on radio communications or radar indicators, mentioned Chris DeMay, HawkEye 360 founder and chief technical officer. Hawkeye 360 launched its first three satellites in December and unveiled its first RF mapping product in April. The spacecraft fly in formation to geolocate radio frequency indicators.

“Hawkeye 360 brings a brand new dataset that may be very highly effective by itself,” DeMay mentioned. “The businesses that can succeed within the geospatial world are those which can be capable of fuse helpful datasets.”

Hawkeye 360 gathers RF knowledge all through the day and evening no matter climate situations with very broad protection, DeMay mentioned. When Hawkeye 360 satellites detect exercise just like the transmission of VHS push-to-talk radio communications on a ship that’s not transmitting AIS, the corporate can tip-off Ursa to acquire SAR imagery, he added.

Ursa focuses on creating knowledge merchandise that draw on SAR. Ursa has established partnerships with lots of the world’s radar satellite tv for pc operators to create what it calls “a digital SAR constellation.”

Initially, Ursa and Hawkeye plan to give attention to maritime monitoring. Later, they are going to examine land purposes the place HawkEye 360 can also cue Ursa’s digital SAR constellation.