The world’s “First and Cleverest Space-Based ULD-Tracker” for Airports and Airfreights in EU and worldwide.

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - STAP-WATCHER (The world’s “First and Cleverest Space-Based ULD-Tracker” for Airports and Airfreights in EU and worldwide.)

Reporting period: 2020-01-01 to 2020-06-30

STAP GmbH is based in Graz Austria, founded after 4 years of intensive product development in March 2018. The founding team consists of Dr. Joachim Metter (CTO), Dipl. Paed. Margarete Metter (CEO) and 6 additional employees.
The Unit Load Devices (ULD) are special containers which are used exclusively for air freights and hence, there are thousands of different types of ULD. The core innovation of STAP is a patented, non-invasive technology, the ULD-Tracking and management technology. It consists of hard- and software and the complete system software can run at server. The first product which exceeded TRL6 is called “STAP-Watcher” which is simple, plug & play and universal model independent of types of ULD.

The main customer benefits STAP-Watcher are the user friendliness (unique and simple plug-in-and-play system working both indoor and outdoor), highly accurate monitoring as well as the unmatched price (30% cheaper than any closest competitor product in market). Further ad-vantages over state-of-the-art systems include small system size, equipped additional sensors, fully automatic documentation (designed for very small to extremely large airport & cargos), no need of addition infrastructure and smart control through actual patented technology. The air-lines and cargo forwarder including ground handlers save up to 16% time and labour costs using STAP watcher.
Target customers are Airlines, Airfreight companies, Airfreight insurances, common Transport organizations, Manufacturer of ULD containers and the ground services companies at the air-ports. With our unique patented technology, it is possible to generate a new niche marker. This target group is reached via four distribution channels: Partnerships with airlines, Airfreight logis-tics and insurance companies, Local sale representatives, Presenting STAP-Watcher at Air logistic fairs and Online sales.
STAP-Watcher is engineered in a way that it is an universal fit model for all EU and non-EU mem-ber countries. During this project, market feedback was collected, market and legal frameworks were evaluated and summarized in an action plan for a broad scale-up and market penetration. Market prospects for easy-to-use and precise ULD monitoring is highly promising. In the last years, STAP, specially STAP-Watcher won several appreciations, Letter of interests from many airports and incubation at ESA (European Space Agency). STAP is an officially ap-proved member of IATA (International Airport Transport Association)

I. Technology: Technological development of STAP-watcher
During Q1-Q2 2020 following technical developments were done:
Continued technical developments: We have continued in concrete technological planning and we have developed mock-ups and same sample electronics to demonstrate our tech-nological ideas internally first and later with partners and stakeholders to ensure that the ideas we have are useful, reliable in terms of higher value in usage, prices reduction etc.
Implementation of Redmine and GIT for version control for documents and source code files.

New Satellite communication: Complete and new real chip-based developments have been not foreseen at this stage of the project. So, we have tested new communication features like new Satellite communication better and cheaper communication solutions.

A basic improvement was the test and integrational work with low orbit satellite technolo-gies like hiber band satellites. These low orbit satellites need less than 10 % of the commu-nication sending power than the “normal” available satellites like we already had in our portfolio. We have tested availability in different countries of Europe, time slots of availabil-ity and commercial restrictions of this solutions.

We have started to check the new satellite series from Amazon (3,236 satellites), Elon Musk (SpaceX with 4,400 up to 12,000) Starlink satellites) or OneWeb (650 satellites) which will of-fer new services during the next years for commercial use and found that all of them may fit with our aims to establish in every country of the world and in every airport a direct sat-ellite communication wherever we will need one. Actually we are cooperating with the Dutch company Hiber.global for new integration of their hiber band satellites which are available for testing.

Satellite communication is always a feedback scenario in our STAP-Watcher but it’s one of the most interesting possibilities of the system. No other ULD tracking and monitoring sys-tem from our competitors have these specialised communication integrated until today.

Communication power reduction: New integrational work in order to reduce internal com-munication power was carried out. We have tested new, extreme low power calculation units if they may help us to reduce the general power consumption of our systems as much as possible.
Energy harvest module: Rework with the usage of extreme low power units was done and made analysis of energy harvesting modules to create a decision base for our future devel-opments.
In addition, some pilot runs were carried out in field conditions. Photo 2, presents an overview of current frontend of the software and field operations.

Photo 2: STAP-Watcher in field tests
We realized an ongoing planning task which includes all new knowledge we have got during the last months as well as we tried to optimize sub-systems e.g. nearfield communication and GLONAS integration. Further technological developments are planned directly after the feasibility study is finished.

STAP developed a highly innovative, efficient, cost-effective, user-friendly plug-and-play ULD tracker. Which is characterized through:
• Real-time localization with the newest low orbit, low power, low-cost satellite technolo-gy.
• Seamless indoor and outdoor tracking as well as guaranteed switching-off of the system if entering the aircraft.
• Applied for all airfreight categories through the usage of additional sensors (e.g. tempera-ture, moisture, shock, magnetic fields, radar, etc.)
• No extra non-movable infrastructure needed (neither for the airport nor for the airplane)
• Retrofit with an auto warning to Airport: No installation costs and negligible maintenance costs
• Highest data encryption standards including blockchain technology will be used.
• Efficient and self-enhancing technology through the usage of AI in mobile units, sensor and communication control as well as complete knowledge management.
• Highly user-friendly; installation is a simple clicking system easy to integrate through well-defined and open interfaces in existing data structures.
Approved according to IATA regulations, CE, and the radio standards.
• Incorporation of Augmented Reality technologies with integrated traffic light system on high loaders; ramp manager will have information about the status of the ULD that will be loaded next. The shared information is extracted from the security database and if neces-sary, from authorities. The STAP Watcher is checking if the concrete ULD is on the right air-craft door and outputs the combined results of the calculation in a simple traffic light sys-tem on the AR display. Further extensions include mounting such a traffic light directly on the high loaders.
• Patented technology, made in Austria (Patent: AT520916 (Juni 2019) and additional PCT and some selected countries outside the EC, done in September 2019)

STAP Wathcer in action at FARO Airport

Screenshot for demonstrating ULD tracking on airports

STAP-Watcher in test status at FARO

STAP-Watcher testing version mounted on ULD

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - STAP-WATCHER (The world’s “First and Cleverest Space-Based ULD-Tracker” for Airports and Airfreights in EU and worldwide.)

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