Session
Poster Session 4
Location
Salt Palace Convention Center, Salt Lake City, UT
Abstract
Real-time satellite responsiveness to user requests from the field remains largely unavailable in current space systems. Such capabilities are typically restricted to low-altitude airborne platforms, primarily due to limited satellite communication bandwidth, intermittent ground contact, and the reliance on ground-based mission planning. Enabling true responsiveness requires a paradigm shift toward highly autonomous satellites, in which target selection, task execution, and mission planning are performed on board.
For example, a user may request a satellite to perform the following task in real-time: detect a ceiling tanker ship in a specified area, estimate its velocity from video data, and autonomously track the ship for as long as possible, predict it’s location in the next time it will be visible for the satelite and finaly manuver the cameras when it will become visible, locate the same ship and follow it. Such “chat-like” tasking commands can be conveyed over narrow-band communication links, potentially from handheld user terminals, while the satellite performs the entire chain of perception, reasoning, and control functions autonomously.
Document Type
Event
Paper
Included in
Semi-Autonomous Reconnaissance Satellite: A Laboratory Demonstration of End-to-End On-Board Mission Autonomy
Salt Palace Convention Center, Salt Lake City, UT
Real-time satellite responsiveness to user requests from the field remains largely unavailable in current space systems. Such capabilities are typically restricted to low-altitude airborne platforms, primarily due to limited satellite communication bandwidth, intermittent ground contact, and the reliance on ground-based mission planning. Enabling true responsiveness requires a paradigm shift toward highly autonomous satellites, in which target selection, task execution, and mission planning are performed on board.
For example, a user may request a satellite to perform the following task in real-time: detect a ceiling tanker ship in a specified area, estimate its velocity from video data, and autonomously track the ship for as long as possible, predict it’s location in the next time it will be visible for the satelite and finaly manuver the cameras when it will become visible, locate the same ship and follow it. Such “chat-like” tasking commands can be conveyed over narrow-band communication links, potentially from handheld user terminals, while the satellite performs the entire chain of perception, reasoning, and control functions autonomously.
