AETHER
ADVANCED AIR QUALITY SERVICES FOR HOLISTIC URBAN MANAGEMENT AND RESILIENCE
Introduction
AETHER combines advanced satellite observations with hyperlocal atmospheric modeling to deliver street-level air quality forecasts and health risk indicators, providing dynamic decision-support for urban managers. This cloud-based service fills the geographic blind spots of physical sensor networks, empowering municipal governments to easily comply with strict EU directives and proactively protect vulnerable populations from air pollution episodes.
Objectives
• Better urban air intelligence: Eliminate geographic blind spots by delivering continuous, high-resolution air quality maps down to 10-meter street levels.
• Translate science into health action: Convert pollutant concentration forecasts into standardized, daily epidemiological health risk indices for public protection.
• Enable dynamic traffic simulations: Provide city operators with interactive “what-if” modeling tools to evaluate air quality benefits from traffic-diversion strategies.
• Automate municipal alerting: Centralize predictive models into a cloud platform to automatically trigger early alerts before pollution episodes peak.
AETHER innovates by combining satellite data with local weather and traffic models. These space-borne inputs are processed to turn global atmospheric data into clear, street-level metrics. This approach allows city managers to monitor pollution even in areas without physical ground sensors.
Impact on Climate Resilience
Urban air pollution and climate change are deeply interconnected crises with shared origins. Key sectors like transport and combustion drive both global warming and local air degradation, posing a direct threat to public health.
Climate change and heatwaves directly worsen local pollution, creating serious health risks for citizens, especially vulnerable groups.
AETHER strengthens urban resilience by providing cities with high-resolution forecasting dashboards. By allowing municipalities to simulate traffic plans, the platform helps local governments protect public health and adapt to environmental changes.
From Lab to Market: Customers and Commercial Roadmap
AETHER disrupts environmental monitoring by replacing expensive hardware with a scalable, subscription-based cloud platform. This solution helps municipal governments comply with EU Air Quality Directives, supports public health agencies with early warnings, and assists urban managers to make informed, timely decisions and take direct action.
The commercial roadmap starts with operational testing in Sant Boi de Llobregat, integrated into the validated Argos platform serving 8 million citizens. Backed by early interest from Terrassa and Andorra, AETHER will scale across Europe within 18 months, strengthening the European space-driven market.
