Space, satellites, drones and 5G for the protection of Cultural Heritage

The eye of the satellites from space aimed at our artistic riches to guarantee – thanks also to space technologies, drones and 5G – the monitoring and conservation of our country’s immovable cultural heritage, also expanding the perimeter of the national tourism sector. These are the objectives of the Vadus, Space to Tree, Amor and Pomerium projects illustrated today during the “Presentation of the Esa 5G for L’Art Projects and of the Esa-Mic MoI for the monitoring and conservation of immovable cultural heritage”. The four projects are supported by the Italian Space Agency within the Artes program of the European Space Agency and the new technological horizons of Esa, Asi and Mic were presented by the Undersecretary for Cultural Heritage and Activities, Lucia Borgonzoni, by the Director for Telecommunications Agency European Space Agency, Elodie Viau, and the president of the Italian Space Agency, Giorgio Saccoccia. The interventions were introduced and completed by Maria Cristina Falvella, President of the E. Amaldi Foundation – Ambassador for ESA Business Applications in Italy, while Alberto Tuozzi of the Italian Space Agency presented the managers of the respective lead companies of the projects. The 4 projects presented today by Esa, Asi and Mic “are projects for the protection and use of our heritage, but also opportunities for new job opportunities. As undersecretary, I tried to work to put this knowledge into a system and ensure that the model the protection of heritage according to the Italian school can be strengthened and improved “commented Undersecretary for Culture, Lucia Borgonzoni. “It is a duty for us, who have such a great heritage, to develop virtuous models and experiences that can also be adopted and implemented by other states”, underlined Borgonzoni. “Italy – the Undersecretary observed – has an immense but fragile heritage which is strongly subject not only to climate change, but also to hydrogeological instability, coastal erosion and other phenomena affecting our territories. To protect the heritage. of our country in the best possible way, we started with a special project for the Colosseum and then we worked to increase the funds available for multisystem monitoring, with drones, satellites, artificial intelligence, augmented reality and 5G. The path is long and we will ask the rest of the Government to support these activities with additional additional funds, because the protection of our historical heritage is a central theme for our entire Government “The Vadus, Space to Tree, Amor, Pomerium projects are focused on the implementation of monitoring systems advanced for cultural heritage, with the integration of different methodologies and technologies to extract information on the go Added lore designed to support the activities of the Managing Body, in particular the activities relating to the planning and management of maintenance. The risk scenarios faced with the technologies envisaged by the projects foresee in particular the stability of the soil and of the artifacts, the impact of anthropic activities, the analysis of weeds, the analysis of the concentration and degrading effect of pollutants in the urban environment. . The four projects, which were authorized in May 2020, were selected with a tender based on an agreement of the European Space Agency with the Italian Space Agency with Roma Capitale, University of L’Aquila, Abruzzo Region and Municipality of L ‘Aquila and Municipality of Turin. The perimeter of the institutions involved is to enhance the possibility of integration between space and 5G networks in various fields of applications and areas of interest expressed by the Italian institutions mentioned. The issue of the announcement was therefore preceded by the collection of requirements of institutional interest and on the identification of 4 thematic areas: Law enforcement and emergency response; Cultural heritage; Structural health monitoring and risk modeling; Smart transport. “Spatial tools have been used for the protection of cultural heritage for a long time, ASI has been collaborating with the Ministry of Culture for some time both directly and through the tools managed by ESA” noted the president of ASI, Giorgio Saccoccia. “The Artes program is becoming an important tool for implementing new ideas” and “the programs presented at the Mic are an excellent demonstration” of the applications of space activities and “allow the involvement of an entire supply chain and Italy is very efficient with its industrial chain made up of large national industries but also new players and small startups “added the president of ASI. Here are the 4 programs: The Pomerio project involves e-Geos, a company set up by Telespazio (80%) and the Italian Space Agency (20%), which has signed a contract with the European Space Agency. This is a project to safeguard the environmental and cultural heritage of the historic center of Rome thanks to satellites, drones and the 5G network. The project will be carried out by e-Goes with Arakne, Adpm, Emersum, Cistec, Dbw, and aims to implement a monitoring and management system of cultural heritage to support ordinary and extraordinary management activities. The system will be based on the integration of different technologies: satellite, Rpas, in situ IoT monitoring, image recognition and advanced modeling. The communication backbone that connects the different components will leverage on 5G technology, in particular on high data transmission capacities. The geolocation services will be provided by Gnss Systems. The demonstration project will focus on the entire test site of the Unesco World Heritage area of ​​Rome. The Vadus project – Virtual Access and Digitization for Unreachable Sites – looks at the growth and new challenges of cultural tourism and aims to develop and demonstrate a new set of applications for enriching the visitor experience based on the convergence of technologies of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality and 5G and satellite services. The project is led by Next Ingegneria dei Sistemi with Kythera, Enea, “Sapienza University”, Telecom Italia, Archeological park of Ostia Antica, Archeological park of Colosseo. The SpaceTo Tree project led by Digimat and in which Cnr Ispx (Ex Ibam) and Cnr Imaa participate – aims to design, implement, test and validate a dedicated Alert System for monitoring public green areas, in particular those located within areas of significant historical and cultural sites and will also see the Sentinel 2 and Prisma satellites in the field. The Amor project (Advanced observation and multimedia services for the ecosystem of the cultural heritage of Rome) is led by Nais and sees the participation of Coopculture, Registr, Cnr, Esri, Nitel. Amor aims to develop sustainable services for the protection and use of Cultural Heritage located in rich and dense historical centers affected by significant anthropogenic pressure, represented above all by large flows of visitors. The services will also be implemented through the integration, through the development of specific interfaces and adapters of services downstream of the Satellite Systems (both Earth Observation and Positioning) and multispectral and radar detection services via UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and Gpt (Ground Penetrating Radar); o 5G communication services. (by Andreana d’Aquino)