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It is has achieved successful onboard AI detection of objects on Earth and also the immediate relay of insight data to users on the ground. The Dublin-based company says it marks the world’s first commercial deployment of Live Earth Intelligence – i.e. AI-based Earth Obsevation processing – for real-time space-based insights.
“This is a paradigm shift for Earth Observation,” said Fintan Buckley, CEO of Ubotica. “The industry has long sought a model of live Earth intelligence, where insights are generated onboard satellite and instantly relayed to ground. The CogniSAT-6 mission is the first to achieve Live Earth Intelligence, revolutionising the capabilities and cost-efficiency of Earth Observation.”
Efficiency
Basically, the mission is using AI to avoid simply gathering data and downlink it all for delayed on-ground processing. Its aim is to enable satellites to understand what they see and then be in a position to deliver real-time and actionable insights.
Specifically, the system captured an image over Khor Fakkan, UAE, and identified 142 ships outside the port, at a rate of 21.3 km² of image data processed per second.
Another observation, pictured, was of Galveston in Texas. Within seconds, said Ubiotica, its AI identified 37 ships entering the channel and instantly relayed information to ground.
For example, the system not only identifies vessels but also extracts metadata, including location, size, and orientation. Such metadata can, in turn, be combined with AIS (Automatic Identification System) data to detect potentially “dark” ships engaged in illegal or suspicious activities. Shipping monitoring being one example of a possible application.
Ubotica’s CogniSAT-6 mission was launched in partnership with Open Cosmos in March this year.
CogniSAT-XE2
The company’s CogniSAT-XE2 hardware platform – to support the use of AI in space, for in-orbit data analysis – is pictured right.
The mechanical and power envelope of CogniSAT-XE2 (with a PC/104 form factor) is compatible with small satellites, such as CubeSats.
Employing Intel’s Movidius Myriad X VPU (vision processing unit), pre-trained OpenVINO models can be deployed onto the CogniSAT-XE board using the Host Control Software.
See also: Ubotica funded by EC to pioneer AI In Space Defence
