Using AI to enhance satellite imagery to monitor the planet

A new method to evaluate completely different satellite designs utilizing a robust AI approach to extra cheaply monitor our planet from space has been revealed within the journal Distant Sensing Letters.

Because of a world workforce led by Swinburne College of Expertise and main supplier of world Earth commentary information, Planet Labs, the AI-powered technique reduces the price of Earth Commentary satellites whereas conserving the standard of photographs excessive.

Historically, designing and working Earth commentary satellites entails trade-offs between the dimensions, value and high quality of various {hardware} choices.

Dr. Steve Petrie, Earth Commentary Analysis Fellow at Swinburne, was a part of the workforce growing the progressive technique. “We used AI to compensate for compromises limitations in satellite {hardware} that degrade the standard of photographs,” he says.

“The glass lens was essentially the most tough part to compensate for, suggesting that satellite designers shouldn’t compromise on the standard of the lens relative to the standard of different elements.”

Taking photographs of the Earth’s floor is necessary for a lot of purposes, from monitoring climate change and biodiversity loss, to monitoring extreme events like bushfires and floods.

Decreasing the price of Earth commentary satellites will permit higher monitoring of those necessary phenomena.

Professor Alan Duffy, Swinburne Professional Vice-Chancellor of Flagship Initiatives says, “The brand new technique demonstrates how AI can improve photographs of Earth past the bounds of the satellites themselves.

“This supplies higher-quality information with doubtlessly lower-cost satellites and may help drive the uptake of Earth Commentary as a software for every thing from agriculture to mining.

“Swinburne is pleased with the shut collaborations it has nurtured with business. This undertaking is an excellent instance that brings collectively the very best of Swinburne’s House Expertise and Business Institute researchers in addition to main Earth Commentary corporations like Planet Labs and EY to point out how space can be utilized to assist Earth.”

Dr. Petrie hopes that the analysis collaboration with Planet Labs and EY could be additional developed on future satellite-focused analysis tasks.

“The undertaking gave us expertise in utilizing AI to reinforce satellite photographs, and people methods can doubtlessly be used throughout a number of Swinburne tasks that contain satellite imagery.”