The science team at Satelytics is always looking to add to our suite of measurement algorithms. In determining which algorithms to develop, we only have to listen to what our customers and the market are requesting. The goal of Satelytics is to solve multiple business challenges from one set of data. By design, all our measurements can be run in parallel.

We recently began a project with a large watershed management organization to look at nutrient load and sediment loading throughout the rainy season. Satelytics already measures phosphorous, chlorophyll-a, phycocyanin, and relative sediment, but the customer asked if we could add nitrogen, pH, and total suspended solids (TSS) to the project as well. The answer was, “Yes! We would love to develop those new measurements!”

The customer agreed to allow Satelytics field personnel onto their managed lands to gather samples and survey land and water surfaces with a backpack spectrometer. These activities coincided with the overpass of several satellite platforms to facilitate proper correlation. The physical samples were sent to an outside laboratory for analysis and our team got to work building the algorithms using our proprietary spectral method that operates in the infrared spectrum.

What has emerged are four new algorithms to serve the water/wastewater industry.

• Phosphorous (ppb)
• TSS (mg/L)
• pH
• Nitrogen (µg/L)

With many of our 40+ algorithms, quantification is possible given the spectral technique. We have proven ± 10% accuracy on all our measurements, and many are within a few percentage points as machine learning processes increasing libraries of data.

Satelytics works very hard to stay current and continually add to our suite of algorithms centered on customer needs.

What capabilities would benefit your company? Let us know. Maybe we can develop the next set of algorithms together.