New Zealand Applications & Partnerships
SatSense’s technology is already embedded in New Zealand’s national-scale land movement mapping. Working in partnership with Earth Sciences New Zealand (formerly GNS Science), they have created comprehensive ground motion datasets that cover the entire country.
Avant takes this high-precision dataset and applies local geology, soil science, and hazard records to produce LandSure reports and interactive dashboards.
SatSense’s monitoring starts with Sentinel-1 C-band radar imagery, which captures both vertical and horizontal ground displacement. These radar scans are then processed through proprietary algorithms designed to reduce noise and extract accurate movement patterns.
SatSense continues to develop its processing methods with academic partners. As well as showing whether the ground is moving, the data shows when the rate of movement changes.
This helps identify slow subsidence, settlement and slope creep for further investigation by a geotechnical engineer. Satellite data is not suited to detecting sudden slips as they happen.
SatSense works with academic partners to keep refining its processing methods. The data shows changes in the rate of land movement over time, which helps identify slow subsidence, settlement and slope creep for further investigation by a geotechnical engineer.
Available in New Zealand for Residential Civil & Planning
SatSense's technology converts satellite radar data into deformation time-series, which show subtle, long-term trends and rapid changes, that traditional surveys can often miss.
Proven Technology, Global Reach
With origins at the University of Leeds, SatSense’s algorithms are backed by decades of research and validated across hundreds of infrastructure, hazard, and asset monitoring projects on six continents.
Using the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 satellites, they revisit the same location every 6–12 days, detecting vertical and horizontal movement as small as ±2–5 mm/year. Historical archives extend back to 2014, giving a decade-long view of land behaviour.
Scalable, Accurate, and Actionable
Whether tracking subsidence at a single home, monitoring railway infrastructure across hundreds of kilometres, or surveying national-scale geological hazards, SatSense's technology provides the same millimetre-level precision and reliability.
This scalability makes comprehensive monitoring economically viable across projects of any size, from individual property assessments to country-wide hazard mapping initiatives.
Bringing SatSense to New Zealand
Avant is SatSense’s technology partner for residential projects in New Zealand. We combine SatSense’s high-precision ground motion data with local geology, soil maps, and hazard records, producing reports and dashboards tailored for New Zealand’s planning, engineering, insurance, and hazard management needs.
Matthew Bray
CEO
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Professor Tim Wright
Co-Founder | Director
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Professor Andy Hooper
Co-Founder | Director
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Karsten Spaans
Lead Engineer
Dr Jennifer Scoular
Head of Product
Dr Nick Dodds
Head of InSAR Solutions
Global Leaders in Ground Movement Monitoring
SatSense supplies AVANT with InSAR ground-movement data across New Zealand, measured to within a few millimetres per year. Their aim is to make InSAR technology accessible and affordable.
Their advanced Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) technology turns satellite radar data into accurate, time-stamped movement maps. They provide historical and up-to-date monitoring data to show changes to the land, typically invisible with the naked eye