In the latest episode of Electronics Weekly’s CHIIPs podcast, Bedi explains orbit AI machine learning is a focus for the company which designs and develops hardware for satellites and spacecraft.
He believes AI will have as “transformative” an impact in space as it is having on the ground.
He cites disaster management, in particular wildfires, as one example. “Traditionally satellites were used to monitor and track these sort of natural disasters and they would then inform first responders which areas needed attention in terms of putting the fires out and where to direct the medics, where the injured people are. By using AI, what we can do beforehand is scan these areas, and recognise the type of vegetation on the ground and we can then make predictions on how combustible that vegetation is.
“Now, by using machine learning and image recognition, instead of reacting to these natural disasters, which is what satellite technology has been used to do, we can predict in advance which areas are most vulnerable and we can then take pre-emptive actions,” he tells host Caroline Hayes.
Another example is food sustainability. Bedi says that 20% of all fish caught today is fished illegally, depleting precious marine stocks. Image recognition can be use to identify illegal fishing vessels and monitor their behaviour and activity. “That is another example of how AI is delivering added value from the current and next generation of payloads,” says Bedi.
Bedi also talks about orbit data centres which use continuous solar energy to reduces some of the energy demands of computing.
Bedi also charts his interest in space, how he established Spacechips which is based in the UK and how he has extended its reach to win government contracts around the world.
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