And the winner is … satellites for saving energy

The winning team, Happy-Fleet from Poland, adapted a patent from France’s CNES space agency based on predicting and optimising energy consumption in satellites.

“Based on this patent, we proposed a device attached to the accelerator in your car. Connected to a smartphone that collects internal vehicle information, terrain, weather and navigation data, it calculates the best route for fuel consumption,” explains the team’s Dominik Stożek. 

“The device helps you to improve your speed and braking profile. It vibrates when you accelerate too much, telling you to ease off to save fuel.

“From satellites, we use navigation data and weather data, and also a map of terrain elevation, which is very important for calculating routes that use the least fuel. It is often better to drive around a hill than drive up it from a fuel consumption point of view.”

In particular, the team have in mind car fleets in Europe. Dominik adds, “It is the market that can benefit the most. People with company cars drive too aggressively and 61% of fleet managers highlight excessive fuel consumption as the number-one problem.” 

ActInSpace triumph

The ActInSpace contest brings together entrepreneurs, students, developers and creative users over a weekend. They form teams, pick a challenge and find new uses here on Earth for space technologies and satellite data – all within 24 hours.

In addition to nine European countries, Turkey, Morocco and Brazil also joined during the weekend of 20–21 May. 

The 220 teams each worked on one of the 80 challenges, many using patents and technologies made available by Airbus, CNES and ESA. The teams were coached, advised and encouraged by a variety of technical and business experts.

The national winners were invited to pitch their ideas at the grand final, at the Toulouse Space Show on 29 June, to the international jury of experts on technology transfer and business development.

The grand prize of a flight in Novespace’s zero-gravity aircraft went to Poland’s team.

The Airbus Entrepreneurship prize of €100 000 of satellite data and start-up coaching went to the French team WiSave from Toulouse for their idea to improve flood risk and crisis management by combining satellite images with Internet-of-Things networks.

The Airbus Innovation prize – meeting an astronaut, a flight simulator training session and a VIP visit to Airbus satellite factory – was awarded jointly to the German NanoConnect team from Darmstadt and the UK DYbyDX team from Harwell. DYbyDX proposed a mapping application based on satellite imagery and satnav systems to provide the best paths in real time for wheelchair users.

The NanoConnect team proposed a ground station network for nanosatellites that would interconnect existing ground stations globally, include a common mission scheduler and define a standard communication protocol, reducing the access cost to space. 

An entrance to business

All teams with promising projects will receive guidance from ESA’s Business Incubation Centres and partner incubators on how to advance their project.

“Through our ESA incubators and together with our ActInSpace partners, we will support teams who were inspired by the hackathon to develop their ideas into real companies. From the 2014 ActInSpace, four companies were formed in France alone,” explains Frank Salzgeber, head of ESA’s Technology Transfer Programme.

“We have already supported over 400 start-ups at our incubators to turn ideas on how to use space technology and satellite data into fruitful innovations for terrestrial use.

“We are ready to support the great ideas from this year’s ActInSpace.”