Reference

Glossary

The terms this site and every Aerolant record use, defined once.

Record: The unit Aerolant delivers: a verified finding with its capture date, time and pass, source and sensor type, georeferenced location, the current and reference frames, the classification and description, and the reviewing analyst's sign-off. A record with a gap in that structure does not ship.
Finding: A physical change detected between successive observations of an asset, validated by an analyst and classified under the criterion agreed with the client.
Baseline: The first observation of an asset, against which later observations are compared. It exists only after the asset has been measured; it cannot be bought or reconstructed backwards.
Observation: One acquisition of imagery over an asset on a given date, from a given source.
Cadence: How often an asset or zone is observed. Set per zone at the design stage, by the threats the asset concentrates and the observation window available.
Comparison: The step in which a new observation is set against the previous ones and the physical changes between them are flagged for review.
Analyst review: The step in which a person validates each detected change, classifies it under the agreed criterion and incorporates it into the report. Nothing reaches a client unverified.
Severity: The rating an analyst assigns to a finding under the operational criterion agreed with the client at the design stage.
Sign-off: The reviewing analyst's name and timestamp, which travel with every record.
Area of influence: The ground around an asset where change can affect it: the corridor, the easement, the slopes above a road, the watercourse beside a pipeline.
Right of way: The strip of land along a linear asset, such as a pipeline, a transmission line or a railway, that the operator is entitled to use and must keep clear.
Third party intervention: Activity on or near an asset by someone other than the operator: a new access road, earthworks, construction, occupation, machinery.
Optical imagery: Imagery in the visible spectrum, a direct reading of the ground: roads, machinery, construction, land use change. It needs daylight and clear sky.
Radar (SAR): Synthetic aperture radar: an active sensor that illuminates the ground with its own signal and records the return. It observes at night and through cloud, so acquisitions can be guaranteed on defined dates.
Radar interferometry (InSAR): A technique that compares the phase of successive radar acquisitions over the same scene to measure ground displacement: slope deformation, settlement, movement on the crests of deposits and structures.
Multispectral imagery: Imagery in bands outside the visible spectrum, used to characterize vegetation cover, soil and water: vegetation loss and stress, burn scars, the advance of agricultural fronts.
Aerial imagery: Imagery acquired from aircraft or drones, or supplied by the client, where a satellite pass cannot give the resolution or the timing a site needs.
Ground sample distance (GSD): The size of the patch of ground represented by one pixel of an image. A smaller value means finer detail. It appears in the readout of every frame the site shows.
Pass: One overflight of a sensor over an asset. The capture date, time and pass identify which acquisition a record comes from.
Reference frame: The earlier image a current frame is compared against. Both travel with the record so the comparison can be repeated.
Georeferenced: Tied to coordinates on the ground, so a finding can be located, revisited and matched to the client's own asset naming.
Console: The Aerolant client application where findings, annotated imagery and reports live, built around the client's operation.
Provider independence: Aerolant's position of not being tied to any imagery provider, satellite or aerial: each asset is observed with the source its terrain and its threat require.
Scope: What the service covers and what it does not: imagery on a schedule rather than real-time alarming, and sensors that read terrain and surface change but do not see through roofs, into enclosed structures, or detect gas.