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Smart Satellite Sets Its Own Priorities

Posted by michael on from the lucky-it-can't-take-up-skirt-pics dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "Currently, satellites take pictures of whatever is in front of their cameras. But hydrologists from the University of Arizona (UA), working with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are creating spacecraft that think for themselves. Their smart software, which is tested on NASA's EO-1 satellite, can be used on all kinds of spacecraft. This software has three components: an image formation module, a science algorithm module, and a continuous planning module. This onboard planner reschedules what to film in conjunction with what the scientific algorithms have detected. This software has already detected floods in Australia and will be adapted to also detect volcano eruptions and changes in ice fields. More details and references are available in this overview, including images of the flood detected by this smart software."

4 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. that's great but by fred+fleenblat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's not like this software has to be on board the spacecraft. It's well under a second to do a round trip communication with a satellite, so there isn't much value to having the camera steered on board vs. from a ground computer unless you are photographing things that are over in 1/2 a second. Most anything large enough to see from orbit is going to unfolding slowly over days, not seconds.

    The obvious exception would be a nuclear explosion, but there is already a network of satellites in place to detect those.

    For spacecraft that venture further afield this could certainly be of value though.

    1. Re:that's great but by Garion+Maki · · Score: 5, Insightful

      it seems to me that they are doing this to reduce the bandwith that is required between the ground and the satelite...

      if this becomes a good working program, then they can probably set it up so that only the new images get send tru (of floods etc, things that change), so that instead of comunication with one satelite that transmits all it's images, they could devide the conection over several satelites, each only sending the importand images and deleting the unimportant ones.

      I think it's easiest to compare with a webcam.
      if the webcam takes 60 images/second, but you only want to show 1 image every second on your webspace... what would be best for your bandwith? cutting out 59pictures/second on your own computer and sending the 1 remaining picture/second to the website, or sending all the 60pictures/second to the webserver, and letting the webserver cut out the 59 unwanted ones...
      I'm on a 10gb limit/month... I would let my own pc cut out the 59 images/second and save on the bandwith ;)

      --
      All indicators show that the human race is selectively breeding itself for stupidity.
    2. Re:that's great but by HeghmoH · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What's your point? The software is being tested. The time to find out it doesn't work is not when your 1 billion dollar satellite is around Mars.

      --
      Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
    3. Re:that's great but by spacerodent · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I was under that impression to. I'm wondering if they're playing around with this to try to devolop some robust code for use in future missions where transmision times would make direct intervention impracticle. I know they didn't have any worth a crap when we put that little Sojunour(sp?) rover on mars and it was a big hassle to control. The same code used in this could easily be used in sats that we send to orbit other planets (at least to "do i take a picture" part) and depending on how it's written it could probally be used on a rover. Me thinks this is just a field test of sorts.