2022 highlights
This year for KappaZeta has been a time of growth and many exciting new developments. Here are some of the main highlights we’d like to share with you.
KappaMask went global! The most accurate free and open Sentinel-2 cloud mask KappaMask became available globally in all seasons. We went through rainforests and deserts, mountains and oceans, cities, and farmlands to create KappaSet, the largest cloud and cloud shadow masks dataset. Not only are different surface types included in it but also different cloud types and seasons from all over the globe. Another improvement is the faster processing time
Start using KappaMask: https://github.com/kappazeta/km_predict
Download KappaSet: https://zenodo.org/record/7100327
KappaOne launch. The KappaOne service is designed to make Sentinel-1 SAR data easily accessible and ready to be used and analysed. There are six Sentinel-1 ARD products available, which are presented in human-friendly as well as machine-readable form. Our raster processing got a major upgrade that significantly improves the quality of our backscatter and coherence rasters. This means end-users get calibrated and noise corrected imagery products with the highest possible spatial resolution using advanced speckle suppression methods. Significant focus has been on operationalizing the sNDVI model as a layer of KappaOne.
While KappaOne can be used for a variety of applications, it has already proven extremely helpful for subsidy checks under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Sentinel-1 images are well suited for assessment of mowing, harvesting, ploughing and other markers.
Explore the KappaOne demo: https://demodev2.kappazeta.ee/ard_demo/
Learn more: https://kappazeta.ee/blog/why-do-we-need-sentinel-1-data-service
Watch CAP-related webinar: https://youtu.be/TyH1B25g2gI
We also have great memories from the productive summer months thanks to our six hard-working interns. At one point in summer, the KappaZeta employee count reached a total of 21 people! At the end of the year, there are 16 team members.
While we have strongly reinforced our non-technical team this year, science remains at our core. We’re now very proud to have six PhD holders on the team. Our software developer Heido Trofimov defended his PhD thesis “Polluted clouds at air pollution hot spots help to better understand anthropogenic impacts on Earth’s climate” and Tauri Tampuu defended his PhD thesis “Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry as a tool for monitoring the dynamics of peatland”.
Having more people on board has also given us the opportunity to generate more ideas, write more proposals, focus more on sales and participate in more tenders. We’re excited to start and continue new collaborations and keep working toward our goal – making satellite data valuable for everyone. Thank you to everyone who is supporting us on this journey.
The figure above illustrates a ploughing example on the Synthetic NDVI layer, which is computed from Sentinel-1 raster with usage of historical Sentinel-2 data. It is visible that the vegetation index before ploughing on the parcels is significantly higher than after ploughing, as the color changes rapidly from yellow to dark orange.
New crop insurance tools
A new project to develop tools for crop insurance began with support from the program for applied research funded by Enterprise Estonia and the European Regional Development Fund
Contrary to the United States, crop insurance is not currently common in most European countries. The main reasons producers do not insure their fields are price, lack of flexibility for custom terms from the insurance companies and lack of insurance products to choose from.
Tools based on satellite data provide opportunities for faster underwriting, better risk assessment, and reducing costs on time-consuming and expensive claims handling. Incorporating our tools into insurance companies’ work will help increase the amount of available tailor-made insurance policies in a cost-effective manner. We hope these new insurance policies will be attractive for farmers and activate the crop insurance market in Europe.
We’re always looking for accurate field data (i.e., from smart harvesters) to improve the accuracy of how we interpret satellite data. Please contact mariana.rohtsalu@kappazeta.ee if you would like to become a contributor. To find out more about our crop insurance tools, contact tanel.kobrusepp@kappazeta.ee.
Growing the team
This year KappaZeta welcomed many new and talented members:
- KappaOne product owner Andres Luhamaa;
- Chief operating officer Karoli Kahn;
- Product manager of crop insurance oriented services Tanel Kobrusepp;
- Spatial data manager Mariana Rohtsalu;
- Research & development manager Tauri Tampuu (PhD).
We also have great memories from the productive summer months thanks to our six hard-working interns. At one point in summer, the KappaZeta employee count reached a total of 21 people! At the end of the year, there are 16 team members.
While we have strongly reinforced our non-technical team this year, science remains at our core. We’re now very proud to have six PhD holders on the team. Our software developer Heido Trofimov defended his PhD thesis “Polluted clouds at air pollution hot spots help to better understand anthropogenic impacts on Earth’s climate” and Tauri Tampuu defended his PhD thesis “Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry as a tool for monitoring the dynamics of peatland”.
Having more people on board has also given us the opportunity to generate more ideas, write more proposals, focus more on sales and participate in more tenders. We’re excited to start and continue new collaborations and keep working toward our goal – making satellite data valuable for everyone. Thank you to everyone who is supporting us on this journey.
Wishing a successful and happy new year from KappaZeta!
