Smart Satellite Sets Its Own Priorities

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."

Comments

I can see where this is going

[glen604]

Nasa: For the last time, will you please stop looking at the nude beaches on Earth and instead look at Pulsar 19834

Satellite: I'm afraid I can't do that Dave

Sets its own priorities huh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I tried that in my last job and got canned!

Spy satellites too

[orthogonal]

[The satellite's] 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.

John Ashcroft has directed engineers at the National Security Agency to design algorithms to follow, in increasing order of priority, the movements of terrorists, dissidents, persons engaged in the sin of dancing, and calico cats.

that's great but

[fred fleenblat]

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.

Re:that's great but

[Garion Maki]

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 ;)

no shirt sherlock ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Currently, satellites take pictures of whatever is in front of their cameras.


and will continue to do so for a long time.