Sensat is 4!

With another year gone, we are excited to be celebrating our fourth birthday here at Sensat! Since having officially launched in 2017, today we are experiencing our fastest pace growth as a company to date, our platform is beginning to mature, and we have visualised more data than we ever have before.

​​This year Sensat has supported 213 projects and helped over 50 tier 1 civil infrastructure companies to capture and visualise their projects as a digital twin alongside all of their essential project information in our Common Visualisation Environment® (CVE). These include large-scale capacity enhancements for Britain’s railway infrastructure, vital transmission projects with leading energy providers and reinventing traffic management for the M25, the UK’s largest motorway, as well as broadening our horizons by fast-tracking our international expansion plans into new overseas territories, partnering with Balfour Beatty’s Hong Kong arm, Gammon Construction to support government investment in infrastructure.

The success of Sensat has always been closely tied to that of our customers and we are constantly striving to understand the challenges the civil infrastructure industry is facing, how our users engage with our platform, and what they view as priorities and benefits so we can build out the right capabilities. This year we have developed a number of proof of concepts (POC) around object recognition where we have brought in real-time information into the platform, such as extracting information from CCTV cameras trained to recognise objects— be it plant or workers—in order to monitor activity and site progress, as well as using thermal imaging for leak detection. This is all on our journey towards automation where the fundamental business model of civil infrastructure will begin to change around risk responsibility, and how we can reduce re-work, material waste, and emissions while improving profit margins… but the journey is only just beginning.

Along the way we have been nominated and honoured for some impressive awards too including the Webby Awards, TechFest, CN Awards, and the British Construction Industry Awards!

Read on for our four highlights at four and Sen-stats from the past 12 months.

Sensat has processed more data points than there are stars in the Milky Way!

At Sensat we believe that using data more efficiently will transform decision-making within civil infrastructure, which is why data is key to everything we do at Sensat.

Since the beginning of Sensat’s platform, we have processed one trillion one hundred thirty-three billion four hundred ninety-four million eighty-one thousand four hundred ten data points, which is more data points than there are stars in the Milkyway. Although a single data point doesn’t give much insight about a site, when the data points come together it produces a 3D point cloud model of infrastructure sites. Using this, teams can build a digital twin where they can overlay LiDAR, topographical CAD, laser scans, images, and add existing below- and above-ground data and take measurements, create markups, view designs within a complete site record that provides a clear view on-site conditions constraints, a project’s potential and pitfalls.

Sensat has also processed enough pixels (seventy-two trillion eight hundred seventeen billion two hundred twenty-seven million one hundred sixty-eight thousand three hundred thirteen pixels to be precise) of orthomosaic data that, if it were to be laid out on Earth’s surface with the original spatial resolution of the images, it would cover more than the area of Mexico!

Using these detailed digital views of the terrain, teams are able to receive an up-to-date view of site progress, see and flag clashes early on to ensure design risks are fully assessed, compliant and work is checked. Increased collaboration and stakeholder management means that everyone involved on a project—whether they are technical-minded or not—can access information and automate workflows that assist decision making, boost productivity and increase profitability.

This year Sensat’s users have spent more than 4847 hours (or 202 days) on the Platform

Sensat’s advanced visualisation platform has always been an evolution and this year has seen some game-changing new features focusing on how we can make visual data easier to interpret and use, supporting team collaboration and improving data management. These include Sensat’s timeline feature which is an incredibly powerful tool that gives users an at-a-glance view of their project and markups from month-to-month, or week-to-week so that they’re able to keep an eye on progress. We have also improved data management, providing more control over the ability to group and organise files and annotate markups for greater meaning.

Our stats indicate that Sensat is building something truly exceptional for the industry. We have experienced 100.98% user growth since November 2020 which is a great indication of Sensat’s uptake amongst the industry. And in total users spent more than 4847 hours (which equals about 202 days) on the platform! We have been proud to support teams in the development of different use cases for the platform, from using data as a backdrop for traffic management layouts, to using it for swept path analysis, and keeping teams informed, and by doing so, over the past year teams have created 10898 markups, uploaded 2576 files and flown to 5250 objects!

Last month we were able to officially launch the platform, 14 months after shipping it where 200 of Sensat’s customers, prospects, friends, and family came to our Old Street office to celebrate all things Sensat, and its potential to revolutionise the infrastructure industry.

This year we have flown the equivalent of Ireland to Melbourne in drone miles!

In order to visualise site information and view the progress of sites, Sensat has relied on our data team to capture and process site data across varied terrains, countries and altitudes including using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in the Scottish highlands, wading through rivers on foot, as well as utilising driven forms of data capture, in order to capture accurate site data.

As our main method of data capture, this year we have used drones to fly more air miles and cover more ground than ever before. Over the past 12 months, Sensat’s UAV air time has amounted to two and a half weeks in the skies (408.45 hours) and covered 10782.43 miles which is the distance equivalent of flying from Ireland to Melbourne.

Team Sensat has grown 69%

All that we have achieved this year has been down to our Sensateers. Since our last birthday we have grown by 69% to just over 80 Sensateers strong, and look forward to hitting the one hundred mark in 2022!

Of all the teams, our Data team has seen its largest growth spurt, growing threefold to just shy of 20 Sensateers which now consists of a North and South team meaning that we can visualise data, faster and more sustainably by reducing travel time.

Over the past year Sensat has grown into its new groove of flexible working, with many returning to the office a few days a week, some have utilised our 90-day work from anywhere policy to reunite with family and travel again too. Despite the time apart, when we are together we make our time count. For example, in June we held the first in-person event since the beginning of the pandemic where we were all reunited for SenFest with good food, live music, toy pig racing and a healthy amount of karaoke and dancing!

If you know Sensat, then you will also know that the culture we have created is something special, but don’t just take our word for it… Last month for example we were recognised as ‘Tech Culture Champions’ by Haystack and a ‘Top 20 Super Startup’ to work for in 2022 by Tempo, which is all down to our people!

A huge thank you to everyone who has been a part of our journey so far—here’s to another record-breaking year of growth for Sensat!

If you are interested in joining the Sensat rocketship, get in touch with our careers team at careers@sensat.co.uk or check out our current roles we are looking for here.