Artificial intelligence satellite will filter clouds of images

Clouds can darken photos taken from satellites. To avoid this, Intel partnered with the European Space Agency and startup Ubotica and created the first satellite with artificial intelligence to orbit the Earth.

The device was called CubeSat PhiSat-1 and is the size of a desktop. The idea is that he collects a large number of images of visible parts of space. Then, the photos covered by the clouds will be filtered using artificial intelligence.

For the device to function as intended, artificial intelligence has been trained to distinguish what and what is not in the cloud. The team used data from existing space missions to filter out those containing clouds.

The images are captured by thousands of spectra at once with a hyperspectral camera. Then, they are processed by the Intel Movidius Myriad 2 chip. The tests have already been completed and now the group is working to put the equipment into orbit.