Ground movement, measured from space

Millimetre ground motion for every pixel.
Any site. Within 24 hours.

Radar satellites have been passing over every part of the world for more than a decade. We turn their images into a measurement of how the ground is moving — up, down or sideways, to the millimetre, for every pixel of your site — and deliver it as data your own maps and systems can use.

Get in touch See how it works
100% of the ground, not a few points ~1 mm/yr accuracy, checked on the ground 10 years of history with every survey Nothing to install on site
Why APSIS™ · the technical detail

Anyone can measure a point. APSIS™ measures all of it.

Conventional InSAR — persistent-scatterer and standard SBAS — needs radar-stable targets such as buildings, rock and steel, so it returns a scatter of points and leaves open ground blank. APSIS™ (Advanced Pixel System using Intermittent SBAS), developed at the University of Nottingham, recovers displacement from intermittently coherent ground, so every pixel of a Sentinel-1 scene carries a measurement — resolved into vertical and east–west components, with a quality layer per pixel.

100%terrain coverage — ~7% for PS methods in the UK
1.1–1.5 mm/yrvalidated accuracy, including rural ground
24 hoursfrom order to survey, anywhere — with a 10-year history
0corner reflectors or ground control
Sentinel-1 C-band · open data · contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data
From orbit to your desk

From satellite pass to data you can use.

  1. 01

    The satellite looks

    Radar satellites already image your area on every pass — no flights, no site visits, nothing installed on the ground.

  2. 02

    We measure the change

    APSIS™ compares every image with every other and works out how far each pixel has moved — over fields and forest as well as streets.

  3. 03

    Up, down and sideways

    Passes from two directions let us separate vertical movement from east–west movement.

  4. 04

    You get the data

    Maps of movement, a history for every pixel and alerts when something changes — in standard mapping formats, by API or as a licence.

Whole areas, not sample points

Fields, forests and peat —
measured, not left blank.

Older satellite methods can only measure hard, unchanging surfaces such as roofs and rock, so the countryside between towns comes back empty. APSIS™ measures soft and vegetated ground too, so you see the whole picture — and the whole picture is what shows you the cause.

  • Town and country in one continuous map
  • Up-and-down and sideways movement, separately
  • Checked against ground survey: accurate to 1.1–1.5 mm a year
  • A quality score for every pixel
Conventional InSAR
A few points · built-up areas only
APSIS™
Every pixel · all ground
What it's used for

Moving ground is an early warning.
Here is what people do with it.

Read the five use-case stories
Water companies

Find the leak before the road sinks.

The ground over a leaking main moves before the surface gives way. See where, and send the crew to the right street.
Rail and roads

Watch every mile of embankment.

A route is hundreds of miles of slopes and cuttings. Every satellite pass re-measures all of them, so the stretch that starts to slip stands out.
Insurers

Know which postcodes are moving.

Ten years of ground movement for every address, alongside flood and void maps — for pricing, portfolio exposure and claims.
Construction and tunnelling

See what the works next door are doing.

Pumping, tunnelling and digging move the ground around them. Measure the whole neighbourhood, not just the site fence.
Energy, mines and storage

Prove the ground over a site is behaving.

Independent, off-site evidence for regulators, insurers and neighbours — with a ten-year record to compare against.
Peatland and nature

Show restoration is working.

Healthy peat swells and settles with the seasons; damaged peat moves differently. Watch a whole landscape without a single field visit.

Developed with, and trusted by

  • University of NottinghamUniversity of Nottingham
  • European Space AgencyEuropean Space Agency
  • NatureScotNatureScot
  • StantecStantec
  • Geospatial InsightGeospatial Insight
  • Copernicus Sentinel-1Copernicus · Sentinel-1
Live map

Every dot is a measurement.

Move over the map to see how fast the ground at that point is rising or sinking, in millimetres a year, and click a dot for its history. Keep scrolling to carry on through the site — or explore the map when you want to pan and zoom.

−14.6 mm/yr
Vertical movement · hover a dot
Illustrative data for demonstration — not real survey results.
The team

A small team in Nottingham,
built around the science.

Terra Motion was founded in 2015 at the University of Nottingham, where its founder and CTO, Dr Andy Sowter, invented the method behind APSIS™. These are the people who run the company today.

  • Kevin Porter

    Chief Executive Officer

    LinkedIn

  • Dr Andy Sowter

    Founder and Chief Technical Officer

    LinkedIn

  • Adrian Watson

    Chief Financial Officer

    LinkedIn

  • Paul Gray

    Operations Director

    LinkedIn

  • Dr Andy Wells

    Senior Business Consultant

    LinkedIn

Follow Terra Motion on LinkedIn

Get in touch

Find out what the ground is doing
under your assets.

Tell us where. Any site can be surveyed within 24 hours of an order, with ten years of history delivered alongside — as data for your own systems, or as a licence for your sector or territory. Start with a sample dataset for an area you know.

Ask for a sample dataset +44 (0)1156 712 180

Millimetre ground motion for every pixel.

Terra Motion Ltd