This year the award, created in 2004 to improve the wealth of knowledge and promote the intellectual property within the Leonardo Group, has reached its 17th edition. Participation, which is always vast, included teams from all the countries around the world in which Telespazio operates and from all the Group’s different companies, and is divided into four categories: Ideas Technological Innovation, Product Innovation, and Best Patent.
The award ceremony was chaired by CEO Luigi Pasquali, Marco Brancati, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, Maurizio Corselli, SVP of Human Resources and Organization, and Pierpaolo Gambini, SVP of Innovation and Intellectual Property of Leonardo.
The winning team in the “Ideas” category, composed of Massimo Capozzi, Saverio Santini and Paolo Fortini, was awarded for the "Use of DTN Network Management System within the ESA Moonlight initiative", a proposal focusing on the Lunar Communication and Navigation Services project developed for the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Moonlight initiative. With future missions to the moon, a greater number of users will have access to different services, which will be managed in an efficient manner. The team proposed that a Delay Tolerant Network Service manager be used to coordinate the space and ground-based communication nodes.
In the “Technological Innovation” category, the award went to the “DRIAS: Deforestation with SAR and artificial intelligence from space” project. The participants of the team were Dennis Dell’Ara, Saverio Rutigliano, Federica Pieralice, Davide Pirrone, Vittorio Gentile, Bianchia Rosa Scappatura, Gian Rocco Verdone, Filippo Britti and Carlo Morucci who proposed a solution to protect the biodiversity of the tropical rainforests through the use of an artificial intelligence algorithm that automatically detects deforestation through SAR data from satellites in the COSMO-SkyMed and COSMO Second Generation constellations. This algorithm, which is integrated into the brAInt platform, is used in an operating chain to monitor persistent areas.
“T-Box enhanced services” is instead the project that won the “Product Innovation” category. Presented by Giuseppe Chiapparo, Righetto Alessandro, Fabrizio Pattavina, Valerio Montagliani and Maurizio De Santis, T-Box is a multi-function network device designed to ensure connectivity anytime and anywhere and to provide users different types of advanced services thanks to virtual machines and its incorporated containers. The main objective of the T-Box and its services is to be a solution for the maritime market, from avionics, Oil & Gas and much more.
The “Multi-beam reflector antenna for satellite applications”, invented by Marco Brancati and Antonio Saitto, instead won the award in the “Best Patent” category. This patent is based on the possibility that large antennas can measure the field distribution on the focal plane and correct the antenna distortions, with subsequent construction and operating advantages thanks to the electronic beam pointing, with a single reflector having the capability of generating numerous independent beams.
Besides these winners, three projects were given special mention. NAVSSHE - NAVigation Sensor Switching in Hostile Environments - A Novel Approach for Securing the PNT Solution, presented by Burcu Özkaptan, João Crespo and Thomas Bouilloc, is a prototype of a machine learning based Positioning, Navigation and Timing user device which aims to provide reliable performance in hostile environments or attacks on bands relating to satellite navigation systems used for mobility.
Lunar Services sIMulator (LSIM), presented by Davide Apponi, Fabrizio Paolillo, Dario Castagnolo, Massimo Capozzi, Filippo Rodriguez, Luca Andolfi, Christian Laroque and Jorge Perez-Hernandez, is an innovative simulator for designing satellite constellations for lunar navigation and communication services. LSIM was used by Telespazio as a fundamental instrument during the A/B1 stage of the Moonlight project in order to evaluate different architectural solutions and lunar constellations.
The “Tracing tool for commodities associated with deforestation and forest degradation” project by Emilio Javier González García-Consuegra and Riccardo Nicolè proposed a solution for monitoring the entire path of products that are generally associated with deforestation processes (production of coffee, cacao, wood). By using data from the Copernicus satellites, this system will help stakeholders manage their merchandise needs and to comply with European regulations.
"This year for the first time, Telespazio participated in all the categories proposed by the Leonardo Innovation Award. This confirms a now complete integration of our company within the innovation process of the Leonardo group, as well as a consolidated maturation of the same within Telespazio".
Marco Brancati, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer.
