CSUG & Teledyne e2v Unveil AI-Enabled Smart Nanosatellite with On-Board Imaging Processing at Space Tech Expo 2021

Intended for Earth observation tasks, this system will process the images on-board to build simplified binary maps of the areas before transmitting back from space, thereby significantly reducing the bandwidth overhead involved.

Designed for implementation in a 6U CubeSat (of 10cm x 20cm x 30cm dimensions), the QlevEr Sat demo is the latest development in an ongoing collaboration between CSUG and Teledyne e2v that was first established four years ago. Central to the system’s hardware is a Teledyne e2v quad-core 1.8GHz Qormino QLS1046-Space processing module. This compact space-grade unit leverages 64-bit Arm Cortex A72 processor cores and features 4GB of co-packaged DDR4 memory capacity too. The imaging data is captured using a 16Mpixel Emerald CMOS image sensor also provided by Teledyne e2v.

Large area images are firstly acquired by the QlevEr Sat system, then converted via the on-board processing resource with an advanced tailor-made artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm incorporated into it. The AI algorithm was specifically developed by the Multidisciplinary Institute in Artificial Intelligence (MIAI), to optimize execution on embedded targets. There is scope for this arrangement to be employed in a broad range of potential applications. These include deforestation tracking which is the primary use case, but also the monitoring of volcanic activity, evaluation of damage caused by natural or manmade disasters, growth in urbanization, glacial movement analysis and oceanic investigation, as well as possible defense related tasks.