Monitoring the Amazon

The following hypothetical use case demonstrates how the ICEYE API Platform can be used to implement a rainforest monitoring project, exploiting the ICEYE fleet to enable a flexible response to unfolding events.

Amazon rainforest monitoring

An environmental agency charged with protecting regions of the Amazon rainforest has recently received funding to expand their monitoring of the rainforest using SAR satellite imagery. The agency has previous experience of optical satellite imagery, but has become increasingly interested in SAR, for the following reasons:

  • The Amazon rainforest experiences near-continuous cloudy conditions, which severely limits the availability of optical data.

  • SAR imaging penetrates cloud cover and images can be collected at any time, day or night.

  • Clearcut regions of forest are clearly distinguishable on SAR images: forested areas exhibit high radar backscatter, while the signal from clearcut regions is much lower.

  • SAR can capture large areas of forest in a single image. In Strip mode (recommended for deforestation monitoring), the default image area is 1,500 square kilometers and this area can be increased by extending the strip length.

  • Due to the size of ICEYE’s fleet, the mean revisit rate at the equator is 20 hours and the mean time to access a location on the equator is 12 hours.

The following animated image illustrates the strengths of SAR imaging as a tool for monitoring deforestation in the Amazon rainforest:

Brazil deforestation

Considering the budget at their disposal, the environmental agency plans for a rainforest monitoring project, with the following project goals:

  • Repeat-tasking client — development of a client UI, which integrates with the ICEYE API Platform. The client should enable operators to perform single tasking and repeat tasking of SAR images.

  • Weekly image tasking — monitor a large area of rainforest by collecting multiple images on a weekly basis.

  • Out-of-band image tasking — in the event of detecting any significant events, there is a reserve budget to fund additional images at short notice.

Repeat-tasking client

Because the agency is engaged in a long-term monitoring project, repeat tasking is the natural approach for monitoring the same forest regions over an extended period of time.

Client-side repeat tasking

Given the control over individual tasking provided by ICEYE’s API, it is relatively easy to build a flexible scheduling system on the client side. Client-side repeat tasking is preferred by ICEYE, because of the unmatched flexibility of this approach.

The advantages of client-side repeat tasking include:

  • Complete control over cancellation and rescheduling of tasking jobs.

  • Complete control over the parameters used in repeat tasks — for example, with each task repetition, you could cycle through different incidence angles and look sides.

  • The ability to track and monitor tasking jobs using scheduling tools.

Client UI

The agency’s engineering team develops a client UI to manage the tasking of SAR images using the ICEYE API Platform. A typical client UI flow for tasking a single image is as follows:

Cient UI for create new repeat task

  1. Initiate the procedure for creating a new repeat task. In the Create a new task form, select ICEYE as the satellite provider. The ICEYE account must already be configured with the relevant customer Contract ID and secure access details.

  2. Enter the following parameters for the task:

    • Latitude and Longitude — enter the latitude and longitude for the point of interest in WGS 84 coordinates.

    • Imaging type — select the imaging mode from the dropdown menu.

  3. Click the Recurring task button and enter the schedule for repeat tasking:

    • Select a Daily, Weekly, or Custom repeat schedule.

    • Recurrence time window — specifies the beginning and end dates for the period of repeat tasking.

    • Recurring acquisition time window — the acquisition time window is specified by giving the center time of the window (in military time format), plus or minus a number of hours on either side of the central time.

  4. Optionally customize the Advanced settings:

    • Look side (optional) — use the radiobuttons to select Left, Right, or Any.

    • Pass direction (optional) — use the radiobuttons to select Ascending, Descending, or Any.

    • Incidence angle range (optional) — use both ends of the slider to select the the incidence angle range (minimum 10 degrees, maximum 45 degrees).

  5. Click Confirm to submit the repeat task.

Weekly image tasking

The agency chooses to monitor an area of rainforest known to be at risk, due to its relative proximity to transport infrastructure and because of reports on the potential for illegal activity in the region. To optimize the area of rainforest they can monitor, they choose the following strategy:

  • Strip imaging mode — the ICEYE strip imaging mode can capture an image 30 km (range) x 50 km (azimuth), covering an area of 1,500 square kilometers. With a resolution of 3m, strip mode is capable of detecting the removal of individual trees, which makes it ideal for monitoring deforestation.

  • Monitor 9x9 grid of strips ‐ the agency would like to monitor an area considerably larger than one strip, so they decide to monitor a grid-like arrangement of strips, tasking a different strip each week until they build up a complete picture of this grid area. The total monitored area in this grid is approximately 13,500 square kilometers.

  • Repeat time — as they can only image 1 out of 9 strips from the grid each week, the repeat time for the entire monitored area is 9 weeks.

  • Task priority — the timing of the image tasking is not critical, so the task priority is set to BACKGROUND.

The following curl command shows how to invoke the ICEYE tasking API to create a task for one of the images in the series. The requested task has a STRIPMAP imaging mode and the acqusition window spans 1 day (the time of day for image acquisition is not critical and SAR imaging works just as well during the hours of darkness as in daylight).

curl --location "${API_BASE_URL}/api/tasking/v1/tasks" \
--header "Content-Type: application/json" \
--header "Accept: application/json, application/problem+json" \
--header "Authorization: Bearer ${API_ACCESS_TOKEN}" \
--data '{
  "acquisitionWindow": {
    "start": "2024-05-05T00:00:00Z",
    "end": "2024-05-05T23:59:59Z"
  },
  "contractID": "XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX",
  "imagingMode": "STRIPMAP",
  "priority": "BACKGROUND",
  "pointOfInterest": {
    "lat": -4.215325,
    "lon": -74.318643
  }
}'

Out-of-band image tasking

One of the goals of the agency is to respond rapidly to any detected events, so that remedial action can be taken to prevent large-scale damage to the forest ecosystem. To support this goal, they have additional budget to create out-of-band imaging tasks that are not part of the weekly monitoring pattern.

Rapid response to events

For example, consider the case where the agency detects a small amount of deforestation occurring on the very edge of the 9x9 monitoring grid. Because the damage is visble only at the edge of the monitored region, they decide to task an additional image, centered on the area where the damage has occurred.

In the interests of rapid response, they decide to task this new image right away (at 24h notice)and to submit the task with COMMERCIAL priority, which guarantees a 90% probability of task fulfillment. At the same time, mindful of budget constraints, they decide to check the price before creating the task.

The following curl command shows how to check the price of a proposed task at COMMERCIAL priority, where the API invocation includes parameter settings for all of the factors that can affect the price.

curl -G "${API_BASE_URL}/api/tasking/v1/price" \
--data-urlencode "imagingMode=STRIPMAP" \
--data-urlencode "exclusivity=PUBLIC" \
--data-urlencode "sla=SLA_8H" \
--data-urlencode "priority=COMMERCIAL" \
--data-urlencode "pointOfInterest[lat]=-4.215325" \
--data-urlencode "pointOfInterest[lon]=-74.318643" \
--data-urlencode "contractID=${contractID}"

After checking the price, the agency decides to proceed with tasking the image, centered on the detected zone of deforestation activity.

Flexible repeat tasking

Now that the agency has detected some illegal activity, the priority shifts to monitoring the area where the activity is taking place. For this reason, the agency decides to reschedule the weekly tasking, so that instead of continuing to monitor the 9x9 grid area, they switch their focus to the zone of deforestation.

Fortunately, because they have adopted the approach of managing repeat tasking on the client side, it is relatively straightforward for them to reparameterize the weekly tasks, modifying the point of interest, so that it is centered in the zone of illegal activity.

Spot imaging

After analyzing the first image centered on the zone of deforestation, the agency notices features that appear to be man-made, such as buildings or machinery. In order to get a more detailed view of these features, they decide to task an image in Spot mode, which can deliver an image with 1m resolution.

The following curl command shows how to create a task in Spot (SPOTLIGHT) mode.

curl --location "${API_BASE_URL}/api/tasking/v1/tasks" \
--header "Content-Type: application/json" \
--header "Accept: application/json, application/problem+json" \
--header "Authorization: Bearer ${API_ACCESS_TOKEN}" \
--data '{
  "acquisitionWindow": {
    "start": "2024-09-08T00:00:00Z",
    "end": "2024-09-08T23:59:59Z"
  },
  "contractID": "XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX",
  "imagingMode": "SPOTLIGHT",
  "pointOfInterest": {
    "lat": -4.215325,
    "lon": -74.318643
  }
}'