Northampton company becomes part of team aiming to monitor trees from space

A Northampton-based company has joined a consortium, which is aiming to monitor trees across urban and rural areas from space.

XCAM, located on the Round Spinney Industrial Estate, designs and manufactures specialised digital imaging systems.

The company has now joined a team of other individuals and organisations - led by The Open University - to undertake a scoping study and to develop a new satellite platform for the classification, characterisation and monitoring of trees across urban and rural landscapes.

Funded by the UK Space Agency, the study for the project, called TreeView, will transform the ability to measure, map and monitor the health of trees from space.

Karen Holland, CEO of XCAM said: “We are delighted to be part of this scoping study over the next four months and look forward to hopefully designing and building the complex imager required, should the project succeed to the next stage of funding.

“In this first feasibility stage, we will be evaluating the imager system requirements and available technology, develop a suitable imager design concept and cost up towards building the imager, and preparing it for integration and subsequent launch.”

A programme of significant tree planting for carbon sequestration and storage is planned by the UK government and applications such as TreeView will be crucial to the success of these initiatives.

The satellite’s goal, if successful, will be to provide information on the level of tree planting, and the health and management of trees across urban and rural landscapes, providing data to governments, industry and third sector organisations.

Message from the editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

In order for us to continue to provide trusted local news on this free-to-read site, I am asking you to also please purchase a copy of our newspaper.

Our journalists are highly trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the highest standards in the world. The dramatic events of 2020 are having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers and consequently the advertising that we receive. We are now more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news by buying a copy of our newspaper.

Thank you