NexusEarth
End-to-end Earth Observation platform from satellite acquisition to operational intelligence.
NexusEarth is VTG’s Earth Observation intelligence platform, transforming multi-source satellite imagery into operational insight. Developed and matured within the TERRA project (Horizon Europe, GA 101189962), where VTG leads the AI/ML toolkit Work Package, it combines Copernicus and commercial EO feeds, deep-learning image analytics, time-series change detection and reusable geospatial services.
NexusEarth was built for operational scale rather than laboratory demos: pipelines run on GPU-accelerated HPC infrastructure, outputs are exposed as services, and the same engine that drives TERRA’s coastal and hydrological work generalises to maritime, infrastructure and disaster-response applications. It feeds directly into NexusAtlas for geospatial visualisation and NexusGrid for energy infrastructure monitoring.
Key Features
- Multi-source EO ingestion — Copernicus, Sentinel constellations, and commercial providers
- Harmonisation and pre-processing — atmospheric correction, radiometric calibration, and co-registration pipelines
- Deep-learning image analytics — detection, segmentation, classification, and super-resolution
- Time-series change detection across coastal, hydrological and infrastructure layers
- Coastline detection and erosion forecasting — validated in TERRA pilot sites
- Flood risk assessment and water-pollution analysis — validated in TERRA pilot sites
- Reusable operational services feeding NexusAtlas and NexusGrid
- Geospatial visual analytics and operational dashboards
Application Areas
Coastal & Hydrological
- Coastline change, erosion forecasting and shoreline management
- Flood risk assessment and post-event damage mapping
- Water-pollution detection from multispectral signatures
Maritime & Infrastructure
- Maritime situational awareness — vessel and object detection
- Infrastructure monitoring across transport, energy, and urban domains
- Disaster preparedness and rapid post-event assessment
NexusEarth also supports environmental and biodiversity monitoring by providing derived EO products — vegetation indices, land-cover maps, and habitat change analytics — as input layers for NexusBiome and broader ecosystem assessments.
Technical Specification
| Data Sources | Copernicus / Sentinel constellations, commercial EO providers |
| Processing | Scalable data pipelines on GPU/CPU HPC nodes |
| AI Models | Detection, segmentation, classification, super-resolution, change detection |
| Outputs | Reusable operational services, GIS layers, alerts, reports |
| Storage | High-throughput shared storage for active datasets and model artefacts |
| Integration | Native hooks to NexusAtlas (digital twin) and NexusFlow (orchestration) |
| Cluster | Cluster 4 — Space |
Platform Capabilities
Multi-Source EO Ingestion
NexusEarth ingests imagery from the full Sentinel constellation (Sentinel-1 SAR, Sentinel-2 multispectral, Sentinel-3 ocean and land) alongside commercial high-resolution providers. Automated pipelines handle discovery, download, atmospheric correction, and co-registration — producing analysis-ready data without manual intervention.
Deep-Learning Image Analytics
The AI engine applies purpose-trained models to extracted imagery: object detection for vessels and infrastructure, semantic segmentation for land cover and water boundaries, classification for habitat and crop types, and super-resolution for enhancing spatial detail from medium-resolution sensors. Models are versioned, benchmarked, and deployed through the NexusFlow MLOps pipeline.
Time-Series Change Detection
NexusEarth tracks change across temporal image stacks — detecting coastline retreat, vegetation loss, urban expansion, flood extent, and infrastructure degradation over weeks, months, or years. Change products include both pixel-level difference maps and object-level event alerts, each linked to the source imagery and processing metadata for full traceability.
Operational Services
Rather than delivering one-off analysis, NexusEarth exposes its outputs as reusable services: WMS/WFS-compatible GIS layers, REST APIs for programmatic access, event-driven alerts for threshold breaches, and pre-formatted evidence packs for reporting. These services plug directly into NexusAtlas for visualisation and into partner platforms via standard geospatial protocols.
Heritage & Lineage
NexusEarth was developed and matured in the TERRA project (Horizon Europe, GA 101189962), where VTG leads the AI/ML toolkit Work Package. TERRA validates NexusEarth’s pipelines for coastline detection, erosion forecasting, flood-risk and water-pollution analysis across European pilot sites — providing the operational evidence base for production-grade Earth Observation services.
Target Calls: Horizon Europe Cluster 4 (Space) — EO downstream services, Copernicus value-adding, GOVSATCOM and dual-use observation capabilities.
Interested in NexusEarth?
Contact us to discuss how NexusEarth can deliver operational intelligence from satellite imagery for your domain.
Book a Call →