ObudAI Orbiters

In Europe, municipalities and highway agencies spend up to €30 billion annually patching broken roads and sinkholes in a completely reactive cycle. Most infrastructure degradation begins invisibly beneath the asphalt—such as micro-subsidence and freeze-thaw damage—and is only addressed after catastrophic failure, like the thousands of potholes that paralyzed Budapest in early 2026.

StrataGuard software ends the era of blind maintenance. Using Copernicus satellite data and AI, we analyze millimeter-level ground displacement and thermal stress to detect road foundation failure early. Our platform highlights structural risk zones on a digital twin map, enabling city planners and highway agencies to act faster and fix the foundation before the road collapses.

By shifting cities to Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM), StrataGuard reduces long-term road repair costs and protects municipalities from expensive liability claims.

StrataGuard is a satellite-driven, AI-powered system designed to predict and prevent infrastructure failure in urban and national road networks.

The solution leverages Copernicus Sentinel satellite data, primarily:

• Sentinel-1 (InSAR radar) to measure sub-surface ground subsidence and structural displacement with millimeter precision, penetrating clouds and operating day or night.

• Sentinel-3 (thermal data) to monitor extreme temperature fluctuations, detecting the severe "freeze-thaw" cycles that shatter aging asphalt from the inside out.

These datasets are processed over time using Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) to identify spatiotemporal anomalies—patterns that deviate from a stable foundation baseline. For example, a localized 3mm sink over 30 days indicates an impending sinkhole or major surface collapse.

An AI model is then applied to:

• filter out environmental noise and temporary surface movement (e.g., heavy traffic, vegetation)

• detect accelerating degradation patterns specific to concrete and asphalt

• assign a "Pre-Failure" structural risk score to every road segment

The results are visualized in an interactive municipal dashboard, where highway agencies and city engineers can:

• view a color-coded city-wide Subsidence Heatmap

• receive automated alerts when roads cross critical degradation thresholds

• generate smart, optimized work-orders to prioritize inspections and repairs

Optionally, the system can integrate Galileo positioning data for precise field validation and reporting.

Benefits of StrataGuard:

• Scalable – monitors entire national highway networks without requiring physical sensors or road drilling.

• Cost-effective – built on free, open Copernicus Programme data, drastically lowering the cost of civil engineering insights.

• Proactive – identifies millimeter-level foundation failure weeks or months before the asphalt actually breaks.

• Hyper-focused – strips away enterprise complexity to provide a tool specifically tailored to municipal engineering and pothole budgets.

• Budget optimizing – reduces long-term concrete reconstruction and emergency repair costs.

• Risk mitigation – protects cities from millions of euros in vehicle damage and legal liability claims.

• Sustainable – reduces the massive carbon footprint associated with constant emergency asphalt production and traffic congestion.