Around the world, countries are cautiously beginning to reopen businesses and activities they had shut down to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
Countries
Austria will reopen some smaller shops, hardware and garden stores but people will have to wear masks to supermarkets and on public transport. From May 1, all stores, shopping centers and hairdressers will open; restaurants and hotels will open from mid-May at the earliest.
China has largely removed restrictions on mobility while tightening policy to contain the virus transmission of asymptomatic cases.
The Czech Republic on April 6 allowed shops such as hardware and bicycle stores to re-open. Outdoor sports facilities have also reopened. Starting on April 20, students will begin a phased return to colleges and schools, but high schools are not expected to fully open until September 1. From June 8, all retail stores, including those in shopping centers, all restaurants, hotels and other accommodation will be allowed to reopen.
Denmark will reopen daycares, kindergartens and schools (up to 5th grade) on April 22, while other bans, such as on gatherings of more than 10 people, will remain in place until May 10. Churches, cinemas and shopping centers will remain closed. All festivals and large gatherings are banned until August.
Germany will allow stores with a sales area of less than 800m2 to reopen on April 20 if they maintain hygiene and prevent lines from forming. Schools with hygiene plans in place will gradually reopen from May 4, with priority given to primary and secondary pupils in final years, while daycare centers will remain shut. Other social distancing measures, along with bans on large public events, will remain in place.
India has extended what is currently the world’s biggest lockdown through May 3.
Italy allowed bookstores, laundries, stationery stores and children’s clothing stores to reopen on April 14. “Phase 2” of the three-phase reopening plan will start sometime after May 3. Businesses that reopen will be required to make hand sanitizer available, enforce the use of masks in enclosed spaces, and use disposable gloves to handle food and drink.
Japan has tightened its approach, declaring a state of emergency in Tokyo, Yokohama and Osaka, the country’s three biggest cities.
Norway is prioritizing reopening schools and will begin to scale back its lockdown measures from April 20, when kindergartens will start to reopen. A week later, schools will reopen for pupils in grades one to four.
Spain allowed many non-essential employees to return to work after the Easter weekend. Construction and other industries have been allowed to restart, but non-essential stores, bars, and restaurants remain closed. Spanish police are distributing more than 10 million masks to commuters at metro, bus, and train stations.
Switzerland has extended social distancing restrictions to April 26, but might relax other measures later this month, including border controls, school closures and bans on gatherings, if the virus’ spread is kept in check.
United States reopenings vary by state
If you cannot resist the urge to eat at a restaurant or have a drink at a bar during this pandemic without leaving the United States, head for South Dakota, the only state that has not banned these activities except for take-out.
However, unless you live in neighboring Iowa, Nebraska, or North Dakota, you will be most likely breaking the law of one of the 39 states that have banned travel that is not deemed essential or to get to work (five of them with exceptions or limitations). South Dakota and Arkansas have no travel bans and the remaining six states have a variety of advisories and bans targeted at various classes of people, such as those over 70 years old.
As for gatherings, 27 states restrict them to ten people or fewer, four states to nine people or fewer, and five states allow no gatherings at all. Only two states, North Dakota and Minnesota, have not banned any gatherings.
Twenty-five states have limited all nonessential businesses to minimum operations or remote work, three have closed all nonessential businesses, and only two states — again, Nebraska and South Dakota — have not restricted any business activity.
Finally, while 27 states have no state-wide quarantines, the remaining 23 have a bewildering array of quarantine rules for travelers depending on where they have been. However, the duration of the quarantine is always 14 days.
AIxSPACE, originally scheduled for June 1, has been rescheduled to take place Nov. 2. The conference, formed by Euroconsult and Innovitech, will bring together stakeholders in space and artificial intelligence industries to allow everyone to obtain concrete information on these markets and connect with potential business partners. It will still be taking place in Montreal, Québec, Canada.
The European Navigation Conference has been rescheduled for Nov. 22-25. According to show organizers, the conference will bring together scientists, engineers and international experts to discuss new ideas, latest research results, future developments and new applications. The European Navigation Conference event will still be taking place in Dresden, Germany.
Finally, the Connected & Autonomous Vehicles Conference will now be taking place Aug. 10-13 at the San Jose Convention Center in San Jose, California. This conference will explore the latest industry developments. In addition, attendees will hear thought-provoking case study presentations from top automakers.
The National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) has released a joint statement on the value of GIS during the COVID-19 pandemic, alongside its partners the MidAmerica GIS Consortium (MAGIC), Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA), and American Association of Geographers (AAG).
Joint Statement on the Value of GIS in the Pandemic
The spread and effects of COVID-19 can be best understood considering space and time.
As governments are responding to COVID-19, more leaders are recognizing the value of “knowing the where.” The importance of knowing where the outbreak is growing, where high risk populations are, where the hospital beds and important medical resources are, and where to deploy resources is essential. “Knowing the where” informs better decision-making.
In an effort to better understand the where, governments are recognizing the value of geospatial information and technologies and are engaging geospatial professionals to help them better understand the where to help them in their decision-making and response.
Geospatial professionals bring unique analytical and visualization skills to the table that help responders and decision-makers visualize where the pandemic is spreading more quickly and can make the important decisions regarding where response and resource needs need to be focused. The value of telling the story through a map coupled with a geospatial dashboard provides a view of the event not readily seen in a table such as a spreadsheet.
Beyond visualizing existing data, we can connect data from a location perspective, which enhances the value of the data sources being integrated. Equally important in this event is data on COVID-19 cases and testing packaged and shared in a way useful to scientists.
GIS (geographic information systems) is experiencing an unprecedented level of use. Historically, GIS was deployed following a disaster to help respond and recover. Today, GIS is used as a disaster is unfolding. The COVID-19 event is an outstanding example of how effective GIS is when robust data is available. Governments are realizing the value of investing in these systems and the people who run them.
The information necessary to empower all partners already exists.
Current nationwide models and response efforts may not benefit from the details of local geographic parameters. Local or statewide models and response efforts may not fully take advantage of the data from other areas of the country. Hospitals are surveyed by both federal and state agencies, and the results of those surveys are not readily available to the hospitals working together to care for patients. Nationwide geospatial data will empower a coalition of participants with a better understanding of the spread and impacts of COVID-19 and improve mitigation actions.
The same data can be made available in different forms to empower people playing different roles in the response. Researchers — epidemiologists — will benefit from nationwide COVID-19 testing data and data describing factors impacting the spread. This data needs to be as disaggregated as permissible under HIPAA and in a form readily digestible in models.
The case data could be aggregated to the same units of geography as a wealth of existing demographic data (Census tracts), which could explain and quantify local variances in the spread. Policy makers and those in emergency management can benefit from map and tabular dashboards, harnessing the power of the where by integrating data for analytics.
The emergency response, public health and geospatial communities must come together to understand COVID-19 in the U.S. and mitigate its spread and overall impact.
By geo-enabling public health and emergency response data, we can better:
understand the spread — with COVID case data, movements of people, and symptoms
understand the impact on individuals — with data including age, disease, obesity, and medical treatments
understand how to tailor outreach — by age, language, engagement with government, and lifestyle choices
understand the needs of the healthcare industry — by facility, day, bed capacity, type of care, ventilators, and PPE
understand the impact on the local economy — by county, day, unemployment, and bankruptcies
understand the societal impacts — by census tract, domestic violence, alcohol consumption, child abuse, animal abuse, elder abuse, mental health crises, 3-1-1 calls and firearm sales
We are committed to beginning the national conversation about leveraging the best available data to better understand the spread and impacts of COVID-19.
The National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) has released a joint statement on the value of GIS in the pandemic, alongside its partners the MidAmerica GIS Consortium (MAGIC), Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA), and American Association of Geographers (AAG).
Joint Statement on the Value of GIS in the Pandemic
The spread and effects of COVID-19 can be best understood considering space and time.
As governments are responding to COVID-19, more leaders are recognizing the value of “knowing the where.” The importance of knowing where the outbreak is growing, where high risk populations are, where the hospital beds and important medical resources are, and where to deploy resources is essential. “Knowing the where” informs better decision-making.
In an effort to better understand the where, governments are recognizing the value of geospatial information and technologies and are engaging geospatial professionals to help them better understand the where to help them in their decision-making and response.
Geospatial professionals bring unique analytical and visualization skills to the table that help responders and decision-makers visualize where the pandemic is spreading more quickly and can make the important decisions regarding where response and resource needs need to be focused. The value of telling the story through a map coupled with a geospatial dashboard provides a view of the event not readily seen in a table such as a spreadsheet.
Beyond visualizing existing data, we can connect data from a location perspective, which enhances the value of the data sources being integrated. Equally important in this event is data on COVID-19 cases and testing packaged and shared in a way useful to scientists.
GIS (geographic information systems) is experiencing an unprecedented level of use. Historically, GIS was deployed following a disaster to help respond and recover. Today, GIS is used as a disaster is unfolding. The COVID-19 event is an outstanding example of how effective GIS is when robust data is available. Governments are realizing the value of investing in these systems and the people who run them.
The information necessary to empower all partners already exists.
Current nationwide models and response efforts may not benefit from the details of local geographic parameters. Local or statewide models and response efforts may not fully take advantage of the data from other areas of the country. Hospitals are surveyed by both federal and state agencies, and the results of those surveys are not readily available to the hospitals working together to care for patients. Nationwide geospatial data will empower a coalition of participants with a better understanding of the spread and impacts of COVID-19 and improve mitigation actions.
The same data can be made available in different forms to empower people playing different roles in the response. Researchers — epidemiologists — will benefit from nationwide COVID-19 testing data and data describing factors impacting the spread. This data needs to be as disaggregated as permissible under HIPAA and in a form readily digestible in models.
The case data could be aggregated to the same units of geography as a wealth of existing demographic data (Census tracts), which could explain and quantify local variances in the spread. Policy makers and those in emergency management can benefit from map and tabular dashboards, harnessing the power of the where by integrating data for analytics.
The emergency response, public health and geospatial communities must come together to understand COVID-19 in the U.S. and mitigate its spread and overall impact.
By geo-enabling public health and emergency response data, we can better:
understand the spread — with COVID case data, movements of people, and symptoms
understand the impact on individuals — with data including age, disease, obesity, and medical treatments
understand how to tailor outreach — by age, language, engagement with government, and lifestyle choices
understand the needs of the healthcare industry — by facility, day, bed capacity, type of care, ventilators, and PPE
understand the impact on the local economy — by county, day, unemployment, and bankruptcies
understand the societal impacts — by census tract, domestic violence, alcohol consumption, child abuse, animal abuse, elder abuse, mental health crises, 3-1-1 calls and firearm sales
We are committed to beginning the national conversation about leveraging the best available data to better understand the spread and impacts of COVID-19.
Survey Copter, the tactical drones division of Airbus, will be starting production of medical protection visors using the 3D printers normally used to build drones.
The parts produced with a 3D printer, using fused deposition modeling on an ABS type plastic base, account for up to 15% of the components of a drone built by Survey Copter, the company said. More than 20 printers are being used to produce the visors.
The Survey Copter 3D printers take about 45 minutes to produce a visor. According to the company, they’re not certified from the outset as medical equipment but they nonetheless offer the required protection and, given the urgency, are being officially approved by the Montélimar Hospital in France.
The challenge is to be able to produce a visor capable of withstanding the disinfection procedures used in a hospital environment at temperatures of up to 110 degrees Celsius, without deformation or opacity, the company added.
“Providing our urgent assistance to the medical sector, faced as it is with the COVID-19 epidemic, is one of our priorities, both locally and internationally, and the reactivity of Nicolas Askamp and his teams at Survey Copter is a perfect illustration of this,” said Dirk Erat, head of communications at Airbus Defence and Space.
In addition, Airbus in Germany joined the project. The Airbus Protospace Germany and the Airbus Composite Technology Centre in Stade, together with the 3D-printing network named “Mobility goes Additive,” are now supporting this project in Spain, also coordinating the collection and transport of visors to the Madrid region.
New tests instituted to stop COVID-19 infection at crew change in response to new European Union and and International Maritime Organization (IMO) guidelines
The European Union and International Maritime Organization (IMO) have issued new guidelines requiring ship operators to implement pre-boarding screening of seafarers.
To assist ship operators comply with these important new guidelines and help protect their vessels from an outbreak of COVID-19, Martek Marine has launched the CoronaSafe finger prick antibody screening test.
From a single drop of blood, CoronaSafe will detect IgM antibodies within 5-7 days of infection. It is particularly useful for detecting infections among subjects who show no symptoms and would otherwise embark undetected.
A study into the COVID-19 outbreak on the cruise ship Diamond Princess estimated that 20.6%-39.9% of cases were asymptomatic, while a study published in the British Medical Journal concluded that up to four-fifths of cases are asymptomatic.
The CoronaSafe test is approved and certified by the European Union as meeting the safety, quality and performance requirements of Standard IVDD 98/79/EC — the highest standard applicable for these devices. It is also in wide-scale use by authorities and corporations in Japan, China, Germany, Poland and Indonesia, and is formally certified by CFDA, Philippines FDA and Singapore Health Sciences Authority.
“Screening crew before boarding is a critical step to prevent avoidable transmission from an asymptomatic crew member,” said Martek CEO Paul Luen. “It’s also an important diagnostic tool for re-screening after leaving or if someone shows symptoms. The effect of an outbreak on a ship could be catastrophic in both business and human terms.”
Major corporations worldwide are rushing to adopt these occupational screening tests to help control the spread of this deadly virus, with demand rising rapidly as the crisis deepens.
Martek, which has limited supply of the tests, are urging shipowners to act quickly to define their policy for crew screening, to maintain the health of their employees and ensure continuation of their shipping operations.
Radius Telematics has seen a big increase in the thefts of commercial vehicles since the coronavirus lockdown. With many offices, factories and construction sites unattended, thieves appear to be taking advantage of unattended locations.
According to Radius, vehicles and plant not equipped with GPS security devices that detect and track unauthorized movement are especially vulnerable as the thefts may go unreported for many days or even weeks.
Radius Telematics acquired two companies in 2019 that had a substantial proportion of their business in vehicle and plant security — both are reporting significant spikes in thefts.
Radius Telematics encompasses telematics brands Kinesis, UK Telematic, Plant-I, Sure-Track, CyntrX and Key Telematics. Altogether, Radius companies track more than 250,000 vehicles across the globe, with security devices fitted to 27,000 assets ranging from generators to vans, mini-diggers and earth moving trucks.
Many are equipped with Theft Recovery Trackers, small covert wireless devices with movement and tamper alarms. Once activated, the asset is automatically tracked to ensure that stolen assets are recovered quickly and efficiently.
“From security tracker alerts, we have seen a doubling in plant and van theft since the lockdown began,” said said Greville Coe, managing director of Radius Telematics. “It’s incredible that when we are all self-isolating and worrying about a deadly virus, crime is being committed while people and organizations are so vulnerable.”
Photo: Radius Telematics
One particularly disturbing theft was of a van stolen from a hospice for the terminally ill. The incident in Coventry, UK, saw a property belonging to a hospice ransacked and the theft of a hospice van. Fortunately, the vehicle was fitted with a Sure-Track tracker previously donated by Radius Telematics and the vehicle was safely recovered after three days. The Wireless Theft Recovery Tracker allowed the Radius nationwide finder network to accurately track the movements and whereabouts of the stolen vehicle.
“It’s shocking that thieves would target a charity caring for the terminally ill in what is an exceptionally difficult time,” Coe said. “Radius Telematics tracking services remain fully operational irrespective of the travel and business restrictions imposed due to the Coronavirus crisis. We hope we can help to ensure that essential services can be delivered with minimal disruption.”
Radius Telematics is a newly branded group formed within Radius Payment Solutions. The new telematics division incorporates a number of telematics-related businesses including their own Kinesis-branded vehicle tracking and previous acquisitions including Plant-i, UK Telematics and Sure-Track.
D.C.-area engineering firm produces reusable face shields for region’s hospitals, offers sterile 3D printer patent for COVID applications globally
The team of engineers at Robotic Research LLC, based in Clarksburg, Maryland, is applying its innovative engineering expertise to create new solutions for healthcare workers to help fight the COVID-19 crisis in the Washington area and around the world.
Robotic Research is a provider of autonomy and robotic technologies for government and commercial customers.
The company has created a unique design for reusable face shields and is providing the shields to healthcare teams in hospitals around the Greater Washington Metro area. The company also just opened up its patented design of its sterile 3D printer by waiving licensing fees globally for any application of the printers related to fighting the current public health pandemic.
Face shields
Face shield printed for health-care workers to help fight COVID-19. (Photo: Robotic Research)
The face shields, which Robotic Research is printing on standard industrial 3D printers at its robotics engineering facility in Clarksburg, are being delivered to support teams at hospitals in the Montgomery County area.
The face shield design provides comfort and protection, and features an improved disinfection process capability using materials compatible with hospital cleaning methods. The design has been approved for use in select departments, with broader uses under evaluation.
“Our team wanted to help out in any way we could to support the local frontline health-care providers who are working around the clock to assist those impacted by the COVID-19 public health crisis,” said Alberto Lacaze, president of Robotic Research. “We are producing a face shield that modifies a design based off the blueprint provided by the National Institutes of Health. The design includes some enhancements to further protect from aerosol in the temple area and allow the masks to be cleaned and therefore reusable, as well as comfortable to wear over prolonged use.”
Robotic Research has sourced materials from across the country to support the production of approximately 2,000 face shields. The company is seeking a grant through Montgomery County and the state of Maryland to boost production to approximately 500 shields a day. The company normally uses its standard 3D printers to support many of its robotic products and solutions.
Sterile 3D printer
A batch of face shields prepared fo delivered to a Maryland hospital. (Photo: Robotic Research)
Materials used for polymer 3D printing are often damaged by the high temperatures, chemicals or radiation used in standard sterilization processes. Robotic Research’s patented process overcomes this challenge by using a sterile chamber around a 3D printer where unsterilized plastic is brought into the chamber.
The possibly contaminated plastic is sterilized by the printing process and packaged maintaining the sterile field.
This system was initially designed for a U.S. government agency to allow sterile medical materials to be printed at locations where commonly used sterilization methods might not be possible.
“Because this printer can create sterile materials, which are sterile from the inside out once produced, we are eliminating the need for hospitals to re-sterilize equipment before use,” Lacaze said. “At a time when efficiency and supplies are critical, we hope this technology will be able to help alleviate some of the immense pressure hospitals and medical facilities are currently facing. It is our hope that providing the use of this process at no cost may help bring solutions to the health care teams working to save lives during this crisis.”
The unique printer process enables the manufacturing of sterile medical equipment and implantable device components, such as intubation tubes and other materials required during invasive procedures, in a manner that eliminates the need for additional sterilization.
Robotic Research’s patented sterile 3D printing process (USPTO 10,406,758) will be available royalty-free for a minimum of one year for any COVID-19 applications across the globe.
The company is committed to continuing to use its resources and facilities to develop solutions for the ongoing challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Social distancing and stay-at-home orders are affecting every sector of our economy. How are companies in our industry rising to this enormous challenge? What are they doing to keep their staffs, customers, and communities safe and to help slow down the spread of the pandemic? What are they learning in the process?
We asked our marketing partners, Editorial Advisory Board members and “Innovation” Editor Richard Langley the questions below so that we could share their collective wisdom with you, our readers. The advertisers’ responses appear in alphabetical order by company, followed by the responses by EAB members.
We will continue to publish these responses here as we receive them; we will also publish a selection of them in the May print issue of GPS World.
Professor, Department of Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering,
University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada
“Innovation” Editor and UNB Professor Richard Langley lectures to his students online. (Screenshot: Richard Langley/UNB)
On March 13, the president of the University of New Brunswick announced that as of the following day due to the Coronavirus-19 outbreak in the province of New Brunswick, all in-person classes would be suspended for the remained of the school term, and that starting March 23, classes would resume using alternative methods to support delivery outside the classroom. Faculty members like me had a week to find other ways to deliver our courses to the students. Some of us turned to pre-recorded video presentations and some, like me, to live class sessions using online video conferencing tools like Zoom and Microsoft Teams. I tried both but ended up using Teams on the advice of the university administration.
This term I was teaching GGE 3111: Introduction to Adjustment Calculus. Basically, it’s an introductory course on the mathematical technique of least-squares analysis. Least squares, where one seeks to find the minimum of the sum of the squares of the estimated errors in measurements, is a fundamental technique for analyzing data in many application areas in the sciences and engineering disciplines, including the processing of GNSS data. It was pioneered back in the early 1800s by Gauss, the great German mathematician and father of modern geodesy.
Incidentally, Kalman filtering also widely used for processing GNSS data, is essentially a recursive approach to the least-squares problem. The example I am doing on the board (see screenshot) is how to fit a straight line to data pairs x and y where both the x and y values contain random measurement errors. I have always taught GGE 3111 using the blackboard or, since lecturing from the dining room of my house by video link, a whiteboard.
I recorded my home-delivered lectures and provided these to the students through the Desire to Learn platform that UNB uses for teaching. Not all of the students could attend the live lectures as some had returned home to provinces with several hour time differences from New Brunswick making it inconvenient to attend a morning lecture. Others no longer had a good Internet connection to view real-time video.
The recordings also provided a useful resource to the students for reviewing the course material. When we eventually return to normality, I might continue to record my lectures. They could even form the basis of an online version of my course available to UNB students and non-students alike.
CAST Navigation has overcome many obstacles and challenges to be able to provide our customers with the products and services that are valuable to them during this difficult period. The company has instituted a set of strict policies and procedures that allow us to manage our facility hours and employee “distancing” practices.
We have also enabled employees to work remotely if necessary and we continue to work very closely with our vendor supply chain to minimize delays and impacts to our schedule. These policies and procedures, along with a very focused and devoted staff, have allowed us to continue to provide the superior quality products and services on which our customers rely.
Eos Positioning Systems’ employees are able to work remotely in most cases. In fact, prior to the pandemic, a number of full-time employees worked remotely across Canada, the United States, and the Asia/Pacific region. Now, we’ve transitioned all employees to remote working and transitioned the tasks of individuals whose routine work was directly affected by the virus. We’ve also added a weekly all-staff video Zoom meeting to address everything from company questions to individual wellbeing.
We were already grateful for our ecosystem of staff, partners, and customers, but everyone has shown their positive colors even more in response to this pandemic. Everyone remains responsive across platforms and time zones. The uptick in social media engagements of our customers and partners has been particularly great to see.
In addition, we’ve heard from some customers that they are using our GNSS receivers more during this time. Because our receivers are easy to use for the novice, office workers who would typically not do fieldwork are being trained on field work, which can be a naturally socially distanced, one-person job.
As expected, many of the events we enjoy sponsoring have been postponed or canceled. We’re working with event coordinators and our own team to ensure that when events start up again, we are prepared to go back to business as usual. We are really, truly looking forward to seeing our customers, partners, and colleagues in person again!
At GeoNumerics, we are all OK, including our families. As we are an R&D-intensive company focused on algorithms, software, and consultancy, we are lucky these days. Furthermore, some of our employees —women with young children — were already teleworking most of the time. Therefore, it was easy to extend this to the rest of the company.
Since mid-March, everyone is at his/her place teleworking. This enables us to:
keep the company running
keep our employees busy like in “normal” days
protect our customers by meeting deadlines
protect the economy by not stopping the business
on a case-by-case basis, help our providers/partners who had to stop their business.
Internally, we share a “good morning” short communication via WhatsApp and a daily 20 minute “virtual coffee break” after lunch via Skype.
Miguel Amor, Chief Marketing Officer, Autonomy & Positioning Division
Editorial Advisory Board Member
Miguel Armor
COVID-19 is affecting everyone on a global scale, which means that we all must work together to limit the spread of the virus and protect the people at risk. At Hexagon, our priority is keeping our employees and customers safe, and we are following all guidelines and recommendations set up at national, regional and local levels to do so.
Through all of this, we recognize that our employees and our customers are relying on Hexagon more than ever. Rest assured that we are taking all necessary steps to protect our employees and to minimize risk to the supply of our products and our services to our customers.
At Hexagon | NovAtel, we believe our size, reach, and position not only provide great opportunities but also carry great responsibilities. We understand that the GNSS community in general is relying on NovAtel more than ever and we are taking all the necessary steps to support the community and our customers.
Just like many of you, we at JAVAD GNSS are quickly and actively adapting to the changing times caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic. We recognize that JAVAD plays an important role in many of your operations and in supporting the critical missions of our customers. To that end, we are following best practices to curtail the spread of this virus and protect the well-being of our employees and partners, while ensuring we meet the commitments to you that you have come to expect.
Our primary message today is JAVAD GNSS is Open for Business! Our support team is here and ready to assist you as it always has. Please do not hesitate to contact us.
While there was a short pause in March when news broke in the U.S. about COVID, much of this now seems to be subsiding. At the same time, the value for instantly accessible aerial maps is more obvious than it ever was. As teams work from home and push to keep projects on track, the need for remote access to aerial photography remains strong at a time when travel and remote site inspection is lower than it ordinarily would be. Judging from very recent activity (all April 2020), there’s high interest from city government, engineering, construction, solar/energy and land development.
For Orolia, this crisis has highlighted the importance of the word “resilient.” As a leader in resilient positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) and as an essential business, we need a resilient organization that can keep delivering the critical solutions that our customers need. We can’t let our customers down because they support defense and critical infrastructure programs worldwide. Now more than ever, we recognize the essential nature of what we provide, and we must keep supporting our customers, even in times like this.
Orolia plays an essential role in the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) in the Critical Infrastructure Sector, as defined in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Memorandum on Identification of Essential Critical Infrastructure Workers During COVID-19 Response and the DHS Guidance on the Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce: Ensuring Community and National Resilience in COVID-19 Response.
Many global companies need to continue operating as normally as possible to provide much needed capabilities in order to help governments, members of the armed forces and critical infrastructure to stay operational.
Our Supply Chain/Sourcing team conducts regular risk assessments to ensure that Orolia partners can continue to provide uninterrupted service by securing materials and products. Our service, support, business development. and engineering teams also remain ready to respond to requests.
We use Skype extensively, to keep in touch with our customers and partners but also for internal conference calls and meetings. There isn’t really a substitute for face-to-face meetings, but Skype is as close as you can get. In terms of communicating with our partners we have very much moved into the digital space. We have instead held webinars using WebEx which have been very well received. We have more planned so watch this space!
We have learned that we can work very well under pressure! With COVID-19 postponing some of our favorite shows we didn’t want to sit back and do nothing. We had to act very quickly and look at other ways of communicating our message. Not only have we as a business been agile enough to do this, despite working remotely, our channel partners have really taken on board what we’ve been trying to achieve and helped us exceed our goals.
Don’t use COVID-19 as an excuse to rest on your laurels. Take it as an opportunity to do some of the things that you otherwise wouldn’t have done.
To collaborate remotely, a safe distance from each other, we use video messaging (MS Teams) with team(s) daily, as well as Confluence (engineering documentation) and Jira (task management) for remote collaboration.
Much of our team is able to continue efficient operations while working remotely. Collaborating with our customers has always been a service we offer – which, we believe, leads to better product performance and reliability. This pandemic has pushed the majority of the country/world into remote working. While we aren’t able to be in person with customers, accessible remote tools and collaboration help us continue to provide hands-on customer service, without actually using our hands.
Parker LORD designs and produces MicroStrain inertial sensors that are used in robots that aid in delivery, mapping, and surveillance activities. Our inertial measurement units (IMU) and inertial navigation systems (INS) are designed to allow quick time-to-market development. We offer IMU/INS integration with our recently updated Robot Operating System (ROS) drivers for ease of use. By using our sensors, we have reduced development time while also offering top performance and competitive pricing. There are different levels of inertial sensors based on the performances available depending on the application being used.
As the need for measurement and navigation solutions increase with the demand for delivery, safety and automated robotic monitoring, our new 3DMGQ7-GNSS/INS dual antenna RTK-enabled INS provides next level performance with integrated custom IMU, dual integrated RTK-capable multi-constellation GNSS receivers, integrated barometric pressure sensor, and magnetometer. Beyond the integrated sensors the GQ7 offers hardware support for wheel odometry and API support for external velocity sensor measurements. This sensor has been designed for use in markets such as beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), unmanned vehicle navigation, legged robots, and autonomous vehicles. It’s an all-in-one system solution (GNSS-INS + RTK + SensorCloud RTK).
Get ready for the robot revolution. There was momentum in that direction before, in areas such as delivery, recon and mapping. Acceptance of these technologies will only increase now and in the future.
Racelogic, the company behind LabSat GNSS simulators, is based in Buckingham, UK. Like many companies, we are adjusting to new ways of working and remote collaboration. With the majority of our 100 staff now working from home, I have few concerns about their ability to adapt and am confident that the outcome will be one of success. However, I am also aware that the paths taken over the coming weeks or months are unlikely to be without a few bumps in the road.
I am hearing reports from all corners of Racelogic about how staff are dealing with these unprecedented circumstances. For example, Katie Harland, our LabSat Support and Applications Technician, is continuing to support our customers from home. However, without a rooftop antenna on her building she has had to be a little inventive about how she gains a live satellite feed to record test scenarios. Her solution was to mount an antenna on a ground plate devised from the lid of a biscuit tin and set it on her garden wall. An effective solution, but one that is not straight forward when you are 5’2” and the garden wall is 7’ tall.
I am also noticing changes to what a “normal” day at work now looks like. With so many staff working remotely I find myself walking through the office and instead of checking on project progress I am rebooting computers, connecting equipment, accessing server files, and generally servicing those who are working remotely. I think it is easy to fall into the trap of obsessing about perfecting remote working. I don’t think you can go too far wrong if you focus on the things you can do, even if you need a ladder to get there.
During these challenging times, Septentrio continues to be operational and to serve its customers. We have taken measures to ensure health and safety within the company. Most of my colleagues and I are working from home, while manufacturing has been divided into two shifts to guarantee continuity and provide the safest possible working conditions. Although international travel is suspended for the moment, we continue to have regular meetings via phone or web with our partners, customers and prospective clients.
This virus is forcing us to rethink the way we work and interact. As we adjust to the new situation, we are finding ways to continue working with as little disruption as possible, leveraging the efficient communication networks and remote-control solutions available to us today. Along the way we might even discover new more efficient and environmentally friendly ways of working.
In addition to ensuring employee safety, Septentrio is also dedicated to help fight the virus by providing reliable high-accuracy positioning solutions to technologies that are making a difference. For example, aerial drones have been used by police in Europe to announce new government regulations in public places and to scope out large areas for public gatherings. To ensure public safety it is vital that the sensors aboard these aerial drones, such as their positioning receivers, are robust and reliable even in challenging conditions.
Other delivery drones such as Zipline and Wing are expected to ramp up speed with the increase of automation required to fight the coronavirus. In the European Union and the United States regulations around drone use are stricter than in China and thus the full potential of drones is not yet realized to its maximum.
Since our inception, a few of our employees have worked from home due to traffic issues, work/home responsibilities, or simply geographical location issues. Over the years, we decided as a company not only that this was working very well, but that everyone who could work from home should be allowed to have the same privileges. In the past two years, we have allowed everyone to work from home, only requiring to come into the company offices those who must be in a lab or for security reasons. Everyone has a laptop computer and remote access to files. We use Zoom, email, and cell phones to communicate with each other and our customers.
When the recommendations from the CDC and the President of the United States were issued to work from home, we were already doing this, so there were no adjustments needed. Those that must work in the lab are practicing social distancing and working on alternate days in some cases.
When we first contacted our customers to attempt visits, we were told that they were not receiving visitors and that it was going to take a few days or weeks to get everyone outfitted with laptops and other technology to continue working from home. We were a bit surprised to learn that others were going through this as we were not having any of these issues.
This crisis has taught us that being prepared and trusting our team to work independently pays off when we really need it. Everyone is being a little extra patient, kind, and understanding. We are seeing this general compassion outside of the office as well and we hope that this has a lasting effect on the world.
Jackie Ferreira, Director of Corporate Communications
Jackie Ferreira, Topcon
We are fortunate in that our team is well-versed in online collaboration software, including teleconferencing and online digital asset management systems. We are leveraging tools such as those to keep productive in this crisis.
We are working very well together via safe distancing practices. Our employees around the world are staying active with ongoing conference calls across multiple time zones. Our primary concern is the health and safety of everyone we interact with and we continue to be impressed with how all involved have responded.
Topcon operates with a primary goal of the health and safety of its employees, customers, and suppliers and in accordance with applicable state and local orders, including social distancing requirements. To this end, we provide on-going guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO) and Center for Disease Control (CDC) to our employees to support their health in these critical times.
We encourage compliance with applicable governmental orders concerning their ability to continue to operate, with the understanding of roles within the critical infrastructure supply chain.
We are dedicated to supporting our customers at this critical time and have specific teams working to meet demands to the best of our ability.
Our relationships with our customers and partners are important to us. Topcon strives to work closely together with our partners to protect the industries we serve and accelerate the economic recovery needed in light of the current world crisis. Together we can serve as a beacon of cooperation and commitment to successfully weather these unusual times.
The outbreak of COVID-19 started around the Spring Festival, and strict control measures to stop the spread of the virus were taken even before the holiday ended. Unicore postponed the return-to-job date by one week and encouraged working from home, except for the key R&D and ST engineers, who cannot perform verification, testing, or debugging outside the labs. However, even then strict social distancing measures were guaranteed. As of February 10, Unicore’s return-to-work rate was more than 80%, with nearly 40% of the employees doing it from the office, while now nearly 90% of Unicore’s labor force is back to normal working mode. Thanks to the 4G networks, fast mobile and Web communications, as well as cloud computing technologies, we were able to easily organize video conferencing, online meetings and group messaging.
Our R&D and product delivery were slightly affected by the COVID-19 due to the delays at some supply plants. However, Unicore has a well-run and organized inventory management system, so most of the orders can be fulfilled on time.
Some of Unicore’s clients use drones to perform disinfectant spraying and logistics transportation, which help to ensure an uninterrupted supply of food and goods. Other clients make intelligent and autonomous sweepers that reduce the need for manual labor and keep the workers safely at home. In order to avoid personal injury, infection and transmission in epidemic areas, drones and/or unmanned vehicles with GNSS high-precision positioning technology have been used for cleaning and disinfection, supplies delivery, and aerial photography in engineering construction.
SafeGraph has launched a Shelter in Place Dashboard that enables users to visualize stay-at-home behavior for every county in the United States.
Image: SafeGraph
SafeGraph has also created and released two new datasets:
Weekly foot-traffic patterns
Social Distancing Index
The data is being provided at no cost to non-commercial entities.
“We currently have over 550 researchers, non-profits and government agencies in a Slack group using these new datasets,” said Evan Barry, vice president of marketing, SafeGraph. Academic and industry research articles based on the data are now published on the SafeGraph site.
Terra Drone group company KazUAV has helped Nur-Sultan police to use drones to patrol and monitor illegal border movement and slow the spread of coronavirus in Kazakhstan
KazUAV, Kazakhstan drone service provider and a member of Japan-based Terra Drone Corporation, has been working at the frontlines to keep communities safe amid the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak.
Providing direct support to the operational headquarters set up to prevent the spread of coronavirus in Kazakhstan, KazUAV has been helping the Nur-Sultan Police Department to patrol the borders of the locked-down capital city with drones, ensuring “contactless” surveillance and fast-paced operations.
Nur-Sultan is the capital city of Kazakhstan.
The Central Asian nation closed its borders and locked down its main cities, including Nur-Sultan, after confirming the first coronavirus case on March 16. The oil-rich country that borders Russia and China also announced a state of emergency, set to last until April 15, adopting tough measures to combat the pandemic.
Some of the guidelines put forth by the Kazakh authorities include country-wide travel restrictions, suspension of public gatherings, and implementation of stringent sanitation and anti-epidemic measures.
A checkpoint on the border of Nur-Sultan. (Photo: Terra Drone)
All entrances and exits from Nur-Sultan have been completely blocked as part of these measures, mobilizing multiple law enforcement agencies of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Armored vehicles, barriers, and concrete blocks are being used to man the movement from the surrounding villages of Talapker, Karaotkel (Ilyinka), Koyandy, Kosshy and Zhibek-Zholy, on the Nur-Sultan-Petropavlovsk highway.
An additional post has been set up by the municipal government of the Akmola region in Shubary to ensure there are no cases of non-compliance by the Kazakh population.
KazUAV has been directly involved in the collection of information, operational monitoring, and coordination of actions of the Police Department and the Coronavirus Spread Prevention Operational Headquarters for all these areas.
A KazUAV drone takes off to monitor the borders of the Kazakh capital of Nur-Sultan. (Photo: Terra Drone)
Using drone-mounted cameras with both visible and infrared sensors, the KazUAV team has completed hundreds of flight hours, broadcasting all captured data, as well as the exact coordinates of objects of interest, directly to the operational headquarters command center. This has led to the authorities discovering multiple bypass roads and irregularities in the locked-down area – without which, the quarantine measures could not have proven effective.
When it comes to remote monitoring of vast areas, unmanned aerial vehicles are one of the best tools available to public safety agencies today. As a leading drone service provider in Kazakhstan, KazUAV not only gave Kazakh first responders access to cutting-edge drone technology, the company also assisted the enforcement agencies with the vast experience of its team of specialists, trained to operate day and night in the toughest of weather conditions.
The UAV ground control station at the Coronavirus Spread Prevention Operational Headquarters in Nur-Sultan. (Photo: Terra Drone)
“As international experience has shown, restrictions introduced to prevent the spread of the coronavirus are the most effective measures to fight it,” said Dmitry Ivanov, development director, KazUAV. “Of course, it’s hard for everyone now; it is a challenging time for each one of us. But the call to stay home is more relevant than ever in the context of drones. We are familiar with carrying out critical tasks like monitoring floods or patrolling important events, but this was an emergency request which needed an immediate response.”
The scale and speed of the COVID-19 crisis has left policymakers searching for new tools to address an unprecedented challenge. Everything from faster testing to new treatments to more supplies for frontline providers is needed, and smart deployment of these resources requires an ability to track infections that is not yet available for a problem of the scale of COVID-19.
The recent economic stimulus package passed by Congress — the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (“CARES Act”) – looks to fund this kind of tracking. Among its many priorities, the CARES Act appropriates half a billion dollars to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for modernization of its public health data surveillance capabilities, and specifically directs the CDC to report to Congress on the development of a “public health surveillance and data collection system for coronavirus within 30 days.”
The legislation does not give much in the way of additional direction to the CDC, meaning that the CDC is likely to think expansively and look for proven models in other highly developed public health systems.
Disease surveillance efforts around the world have taken a variety of approaches, in many cases informed by experience in battling prior pandemics. Public health systems in places such as South Korea, Singapore and China were built on the lessons of the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and similar conditions over the past several years.
Location-based tracking using GPS provides greater insight and precision than, for example, asking an infected patient to remember and re-trace his or her steps.
Among many other elements, these systems frequently employ GPS-enabled smartphone apps both to gather information and to target alerts to local populations. Location-based tracking using GPS provides greater insight and precision than, for example, asking an infected patient to remember and re-trace his or her steps.
As discussions of similar solutions have begun in the United States, privacy advocates have rightly pointed out the risks inherent in systems that necessarily gather and communicate health information and pair that information with location-based information provided by GPS. But both legally and practically, there need not be an exclusive choice between health information privacy and using GPS and other technology to gather and provide information about COVID-19.
On the legal front, HIPAA broadly exempts disclosures of protected health information for public health activities, allowing disclosures to public health authorities without first obtaining patient consent. Similarly, HIPAA permits data to be de-identified — subject to recognized standards laid out in regulations and guidance — and thereafter shared and used for research purposes, including public health research and similar purposes.
Legal avenues certainly exist to permit significant information sharing about COVID-19 in order to help protect public health.
Furthermore, federal authorities tasked with enforcing HIPAA have already signaled in guidance that they will take a flexible approach to enforcement in order to meet the exigencies of the crisis. Thus, while it is true that HIPAA has not been applied directly to a public health emergency on the scale of COVID-19, legal avenues certainly exist to permit significant information sharing about COVID-19 in order to help protect public health.
On the practical front, HIPAA also points the way to sensible decision-making that balances privacy interests with the needs of the crisis. First, de-identification provides a significant opportunity to share data in a way that is protective of privacy. Second, we should not assume that widespread participation — both in information gathering and information dissemination — must be involuntary in order to be widely adopted.
Smartphones users can — and should — be given a choice before enabling tracking features on their devices, just as they can and should be informed in a transparent way about what data would and would not be shared. HIPAA establishes a “minimum necessary” standard that should provide the guiding principle here: no more information should be shared than is necessary to accomplish the intended objective.
As we search quickly for tools to enable the kind of tracking that we have not undertaken before, we should be careful not to construct a false dilemma between privacy and efficacy — the two go hand in hand. Strong and transparent privacy protections are both possible and necessary to secure the public buy-in that is necessary to make public health surveillance work.
Jeremy Meisinger is a Boston-based attorney at Foley Hoag LLP.
