SatCom Incubator: Establishing an easy, light and quick methodology to allow innovators to “Start, Integrate and Test” their concepts

The SATLAS project aimed to establish an easy, light and quick methodology to allow innovators to “Start, Integrate and Test” their concepts. To achieve this the project was to support innovators during the whole incubation process, starting from the moment an idea is submitted, to targeted support for integration of a prototype and to the final provision of a set of recommendations at the end of the pilot period. A satellite-optimised suite of tools called SaToolBox was developed to allow the applicants to focus on their core solution rather than re-creating basic functionalities such as Multicast, VoIP or web-conferencing over satellite. At the same time a wider satellite technology choice was offered and therefore higher flexibility for testing. Access to the SatADSL Service Delivery Platform for the provision of services was tailored to user requirements (dedicated, contended, volume-based, VNOs…) and a set of Value-Added Services (Customer Management Tool, Network Monitoring, automatic payments, hotspots…). The project has been concluded in September 2017. The SATLAS incubator has been successfully deployed and tested, with four out of the five selected ideas graduating successfully. The incubated ideas in the field of Internet of Things, optimized communications, agriculture, tourism, worked with the SATLAS consortium to build up or improve their product, using the resources provided by SATLAS. Pilots where executed in Europe and in Africa. The successful graduates of SATLAS either achieved commercial success during/after the pilots or obtained lessons learned and established collaborations that will allow them to reach their goals. The SATLAS consortium has also been engaged in novel applications and will continue working with some of the graduates beyond the SATLAS contract.