ISRO alum's space tech startup aims to tackle ocean surveillance with satellite data

(L) Piersight CEO Gaurav Seth and CTO Vinit Bansal

In March 2021, when a ship ran aground and blocked the Suez Canal for six days, international maritime trade was hit hard, with a significant impact on the entire GDPs of countries. According to estimates, each day of blockage costs global trade $10 billion.

“If proper real-time imaging data was available, one could have realised that the Northern Sea Route (the mainly Arctic seaway under Russian legislation) could have been utilised, and this hit to the economy could have been cushioned,” said Gaurav Seth, a former scientist at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) who was a part of the Chandrayaan-2 Moon mission.

This incident, along with other recurring issues such as that of smuggling, unsanctioned global trade, piracy, illegal fishing and so on, highlighted the necessity of real-time ocean surveillance.

For Seth, who worked at the national space agency for nine years on synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems, this was an opportunity. Seth wrote a research paper on the problem, which won at a conference, giving him the confidence to take it further.

Earlier this year, he and co-founder Vinit Bansal established Piersight, a space tech startup that aims to leverage SAR-based satellite imagery data to provide real-time ocean surveillance solutions.

“For ocean surveillance, satellites are the most optimum way. They map at 8 kilometres per second. However, on the ground, there is a huge gap because traditional ways of monitoring such as by ship or ground stations still dominate over other methods,” Seth said.

“So, what we thought should happen is that there should be a control room where there is a dashboard where one can see all the real-time data (based on satellite imagery). And if you detect something wrong, you can alert someone,” he added.

The Ahmedabad-based startup recently secured $600,000 pre-seed funding from a clutch of investors and is currently in the middle of securing a seed round. Within the next year, the startup aims to launch aboard ISRO's PSLV Orbital Experimental Module (POEM) to test its systems.

SAR and its role in Earth observation

SAR is a type of remote sensing technology. SAR satellites transmit microwave signals towards the Earth's surface and then receive the signals that bounce back.

These radar signals can penetrate clouds and are not dependent on daylight, making SAR a valuable tool for monitoring the Earth's surface in various weather conditions and times of day, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration said.

“We're basically building all-weather imaging SAR satellites in a very small form factor that can be deployed in multiple numbers for constant ocean surveillance,” said Bansal, who is the CTO of the startup.

Piersight aims to launch a number of SAR-based imagery satellites through which they can image the ocean in real-time. Currently, Bansal claimed, SAR-based imagery satellites cannot provide real-time coverage over oceans.

“For instance, if a ship drops oil at 6 pm in the evening, and if the satellites are not immediately positioned over the area, one would never be able to detect which ship did that,” he said.

“It will only be identified a couple of days later when the satellite passes over the area. But we would never know which ship did that. Now, what we are trying to do is launch a number of satellites which would consistently image global waters. As soon as an oil spill is detected, we'll find out which ship did it so we can set accountability,” he added.

Detecting illegal ships

Piersight’s satellites will also be equipped with the automatic identification system (AIS), a tracking system that can receive messages from ships. These messages would contain their geolocation, which Piersight will corroborate and correlate with satellite imagery data.

“When a ship wants to do some illegal activity, they switch off their AIS transponder. If a ship is detected as a merchant ship through their AIS message, we know that it's a legal ship,” Bansal said. He earlier used to work with National Instruments, an American multinational corporation.

“However, if a ship stops its transmitter, but we can see that ship in our satellite imagery, in the actual synthetic aperture radar image, it clearly means that these are illegal ships,” he explained.

Bansal, provided another example, of two ships anchored close to each other on the high seas.

“As soon as those two ships anchored very close to each other in deep oceans, we kept an eye on them constantly,” he said.

Piersight would then raise a medium-level alert, or if the ships tried to enter some territorial waters of any of the countries, the startup would also flag that country.

What next

Currently, the startup is part of the Techstars Accelerator programme, where entrepreneurs get guidance on finding a product-market fit, traction, and access to capital and mentorship. Notably, Bengaluru-based space tech startup Pixxel was a part of the accelerator programme earlier.

Piersight is currently developing its electronics and has developed a ground prototype for its systems. It is now in the process of developing its space electronics.

The startup aims to test it aboard an ISRO launch vehicle. “We have applied for the same, and we are quite hopeful that we will get that soon, and we can launch by next year,” Bansal said. Following that, the startup aims to launch a full-fledged satellite.