News & Events

Transforming nice pictures into commercially valuable information

Dublin based TechWorks Marine, a global leader in the provision of Robust, Reliable and Secure Marine Data, have announced today that they have secured €700k in funding from the European Space Agency (ESA), for two closely linked projects. The partnership is supported by the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation through Enterprise Ireland.

The first is follow on funding to their CoastVal project.

CoastVal is the only project funded by ESA, using sensors deployed offshore, to validate coastal imagery taken by its new Earth Observation Satellites: Sentinels 2 and 3.

This validation project is key to turning satellite images into valuable information and thereby, giving users the confidence in the commercial products.
The sea around our coasts is very changeable. This is due to the influence of the coastline, as well as rivers and activities taking place in the coastal zone such as dredging, construction and water treatment. As such, being able to characterise it is not always easy. Over the last year TechWorks Marine has deployed a multisensor buoy in Dublin Bay which has been collecting data used for the validation of coastal imagery captured by two of Europe’s Earth Observation satellite fleet – Sentinels 2 and 3. The great summer of 2018 enabled numerous match-up data points between the satellites and the live data buoy in Dublin Bay. Early results have been very good. So much so that ESA has extended the original contract for an additional year.

TechWorks Marine has been developing its Earth Observation (EO) capacity over a number of years and winning such a technical contract from ESA is testament of the development of the company in this sector.

The second is the CoastMADE project which is looking to develop a prototype Earth Observation Data Service for the global dredging community.
CoastMADE is a six-month project, aimed at developing initial prototypes for new market expansion, in this case the coastal dredging sector. This builds on the expertise developed inhouse since 2009 and notably more recently with the CoastVAL project.

Welcoming this announcement, Minister Halligan TD said, “This is another positive outcome from the Enterprise Ireland led engagement with the European Space Agency and industry in Ireland to develop and deliver innovative products to the global market place.”

Charlotte O’Kelly, CEO of TechWorks Marine commented “Such funding is critical for countries like Ireland to enable cutting edge companies such as TechWorks Marine to gain and develop capacity in new highly technical areas, giving them a competitive edge in the international marketplace. These projects will not only attract high tech jobs to Ireland, but also generate new data services which can be exported globally from Ireland”.
Conor Sheehan, Enterprise Ireland said “TechWorks Marine is one of a growing number of companies developing highly innovative technologies for the commercial market with support from the European Space Agency, supporting high value job creation in Ireland.”

Ends.

TechWorks Marine

Founded in 2002, TechWorks Marine are leaders in the provision of Robust, Reliable and Secure Marine Data to a broad range of sectors which include Coastal Engineering, Ports and Harbours and Marine Renewable Energy through the provision of Marine Monitoring equipment and related Data Services. Earth Observation data services is one of our focus areas for 2019.