For the first time, a satellite on board used AI to autonomously decide where and when a scientific picture can be recorded – everything in less than 90 seconds, without human input.
The technology, which is known as dynamic targeting, was tested by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of NASA at the beginning of this month. It was installed on board a satellite size created and operated by the Great Britain -based startup Open Cosmos and wore a mechanical learning processor developed by the company based in Dublin.
In the test, the satellite tended to scan 500 km before its orbit and to complete a preview image. The AI of Uboatica quickly analyzed the scene to search for cloud cover. When the sky was clear, the satellite tended back to take a detailed photo of the surface. When clouds covered the view, she skipped the recording – time, memory and bandwidth.
“If you can be smart what you take photos, just imagine the floor and skip the clouds,” said Ben Smith from JPL, who finances the dynamic target work. “This technology will help scientists get a much higher proportion of the usable data.”
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Brian Quinn, Chief Strategy Officer at Uboatica, said that satellites have so far only acted as a passive data collector. They imagine whatever is below them and radiate all of this data – useful or not – back to earth. Scientists then sort the deficit.
“After processing, it needs what could be days later to say:” Hey, there was a fire. Hey, there was a harmful algae blossom “,” “ said Quinn in one Article Published on the NASA website at the beginning of this year.
NASA, UBOTICA and OpenCosmos say that the system could also be expanded in such a way that forest fires, volcanic eruptions and heavy storms recognize faster than ever from space.
The most recent test builds on previous partnerships with the three parties. In 2021, Ubatica showed the real-time Ki-Cloud detection on board the International Space Station (ISS) as part of a broader research collaboration with JPL. Then in 2024, Open Cosmos started HammerA AI-affiliated satellite that is equipped with a hyper-spectral camera and the mechanical learning processor from UboTica.
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