Provide the "Situational Awareness" and "Suggestions" Necessary to Realize Safe and Secure Living by Satellite Information Services Challenge to the Undeveloped Space Genre

We have been developing remote sensing technology to examine objects without touching them since before 2000. Remote sensing technology using satellites has quickly improved since the three-year joint development with JAXA starting in fiscal year 2014. We refined the technology to utilize satellite imaging data to improve the efficiency of levee maintenance and management. Thanks to this, the "Infrastructure Displacement Monitoring using the Daichi-2 Synthetic Aperture Radar Satellite", which was jointly developed by JAXA and Nippon Koei, received the 3rd Infrastructure Maintenance Grand Prize^※.

Currently, in addition to levee maintenance, we are deploying our technology in many other areas, such as inundation area monitoring in flooding, collapse area monitoring in landslides, urban development monitoring, vegetation monitoring, slope change monitoring, infrastructure facility monitoring, and monitoring in airport maintenance.

There is a considerable push from the government to foster the private sector in the development of technology using satellites.

This movement is a general trend in the world and applies not only to the United States but also to all countries that have operations in space. Within Japan, I believe that we are catching the wave of this trend early on.

When I tell people that we are working on a satellite project, many existing stakeholders say, "Is it true? I am surprised”. This is probably because everyone has the image of Nippon Koei as a consulting firm with many engineers involved in social infrastructure. Of course, this is true, and we are not a company that specializes in satellites. However, I believe that is where our strength lies.

Even if we can fly a satellite and capture images of various situations, what exists beyond that is the site. For example, when it comes to disaster prevention, the sites of floods, inundation, and landslides, as well as the sites of flood control projects and disaster countermeasures, are the very objects that can be viewed from satellites. We at Nippon Koei are proud of our brand power and consulting capabilities, which are among the best in Japan. In other words, the opinions and knowledge of expert engineers with onsite knowhow are compatible with satellite development companies.

The Satellite Information Service Center is currently managed by a four-member team, including myself, who has been involved in landslide countermeasures for many years, and Mr. Kageyama, the acting director of the center, who is a river specialist. In addition, we have one person concurrently working from Slope Engineering Dept., one from Integrated Information Technology Dept., and one from Road Infrastructure Management Dept., covering a wide range of fields related to social infrastructure. It is certain that our involvement with members from the environment, energy, urban space, and overseas departments will increase in the future, and being able to work with people with various specialties both inside and outside the company is not only an incomparably rewarding experience, but also an opportunity for business development.

I am a person who likes to work on new things. This is especially true when it is not something given to me by others, but something that I think up and create on my own. I think most people has the impression that Nippon Koei is a company with many specialized engineers. That is exactly right, and we have been, and still are, sincerely trying to respond to the requests of our customers for the tasks they have given us. However, our mission in the satellite information service business we are developing is to create the market itself. This is a direction we have never taken before, but we want to create something that everyone wants and that everyone will want to imitate. How do we create something that does not exist? That is what I find most rewarding.

When you talk about a project using satellites, you may get the impression that it is something great. In fact, satellites are just tools. How can we add value by analyzing the images we take from the sky? After the first step of providing useful information to people, I believe that a world in which satellites are used in a very ordinary way will be born. First, we are still in the process of creating the satellite with a same ambition partner company.

As Mr. Kageyama mentioned, satellite image data is only one type of data that captures an object from the sky. But if you look around the world, there is a lot of very compatible data with different cut-off points. For example, probe data captured by vehicle sensors and drive recorders at the ground level, and SNS data. When these are combined with satellite data, the information becomes three-dimensional rather than flat, making it easier to use and more accurate. This type of collaboration is likely to increase in the future.

Today, the term DX (Digital Transformation) is often heard, and the "X" in DX stands not for mere digitization, but for change itself. We hope that Nippon Koei's satellite information services will be the catalyst that triggers this change in society. It is certain that mankind will go further into space in the future. The starting point for expanding into space, such as infrastructure development on the moon and Mars, and maintenance development, is right now. Looking back, we are proceeding with business development and research and development so that the satellite information service business in the 2020s will be a major turning point.

I mentioned that we are taking on the challenge of creating a market, but to do so, we still need more people inside and outside the company. Whether it is a new graduate or someone who joins our company as a career changer, someone within the company who wants to be involved in satellites and space, or of course a company we partner with, we want to build on our desire to take on challenges together and move into the future. This is a proactive approach to human resources that is not easily found at Nippon Koei, but since this is a center that takes on the challenge of an as-yet-undiscovered future, we want to keep moving forward without being bound by precedent.