#70: L-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar: Commercial Applications & Market Potential - Asterra

Today, I have two guests from Asterra, the Israeli startup offering a satellite-based solution for monitoring all kinds of infrastructure, whether it is for monitoring roads, rails, dams, water utilities and even for mining. While Asterra uses analytics derived from synthetic aperture radar (or SAR) imagery in their products, they use a specific type of SAR data in the L-band spectrum. 

Note: I have had the CEO of Asterra on the podcast before. Check out episode #60 to learn more about the company. This episode is especially about how they use L-band SAR

L-Band SAR is unique in its own way, in terms of its availability, usability and potential. So, to discuss this further I had two guests from Asterra on the podcast. Jasmin Inbar, who is the VP of Corporate Development and Yuval Lorig, the VP of Research and Development. 

In this episode, we discuss Asterra's strategy, the advantages of L-band SAR, its availability and applications, polarimetric SAR and its use, how Asterra is using SAR for mining applications and more. If you are curious to learn more about the applications of SAR, specifically L-band SAR, this episode might be a good intro. 

• Asterra's Solutions
• Asterra's Mining Application

[Thanks to Asterra for  sponsoring this episode]

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01:22: Intros

03:58: Overview of Asterra

06:50: Asterra's customers and product portfolio

11:18: L-Band SAR: What, Why and How?

15:20: Usability of L-Band SAR and how Asterra uses it

17:21: Polarimetric SAR and its applications

23:02: Use cases in the mining sector

26:35: Is L-Band SAR going to become mainstream soon?

30:41: State of adoption of EO for infrastructure monitoring

33:24: Worries about the state of EO

35:20: Wrap-up