Telemedicine is shown in this illustration.
On the left, you have a telemedicine suitcase, which allows you
to diagnose a patient in a remote location.
You will of course have a telephone communication
with the practitioner on the other end of the line,
you can film the patient, but you can also take measurements
such as the heart rate, the blood oxygen saturation,
or the blood sugar levels, and all these measurements will be sent,
via satellite, to the triage doctor on the other end, here on the right,
who will enable the diagnosis to be established.
This is called telemedicine, and in areas with poor access
to medical facilities, it is something extremely important.
Finally we have a service called data collection.
The principle of data collection is to have the satellite function
as some sort of vacuum cleaner from space, where it will retrieve
data that are on Earth. The simplest example consists
in emergency beacons, that we often hear about
at the time of single-handed sailing races for example,
such as the Vendée Globe. The principle is
to have a small beacon, which is activated either automatically,
or manually by the skipper, and which will send a distress signal.
This distress signal will be captured by the satellite,
forwarded to a data processing center,
so that the person in distress can be located.
These beacons are often improperly called Argos beacons,
they are actually Cospas-Sarsat beacons.
Argos beacons use a similar technology,
but are used to follow marine animals, for example,
and to study their lifestyle, migration patterns, and so on.
Data collection services have lately been experiencing renewed interest,
and two reasons for this have been identified.
The first one is the Internet of Things,
which is beginning to develop, and the second reason
is intermachine communication, also called machine to machine.
Understanding this principle of intermachine communication
is extremely simple. Nearby is the Canal du Midi,
which is a remarkable work of engineering.
It is possible to control the water flows that are released into the canal
from the various supply reservoirs. These water flows are controlled
using gates. Machine to machine will enable
automatic operation of these gates, and will enable, depending
on rainfall conditions for instance, to automatically and remotely
control these gates, to say "a bit more", "a bit less", and so on.
This is a typical use of machine to machine.
In order to control machines that are remotely located,
we need satellite means.
