Advancing Earth Observation: A Survey on AI-Powered Image Processing in Satellites
This is an incremental review for researchers and engineers in satellite technology and AI, focusing on improving on-board processing efficiency.
The paper surveys AI-powered image processing on satellites to address the challenge of handling increased Earth observation imagery, detailing constraints and mitigation strategies.
Advancements in technology and reduction in it's cost have led to a substantial growth in the quality & quantity of imagery captured by Earth Observation (EO) satellites. This has presented a challenge to the efficacy of the traditional workflow of transmitting this imagery to Earth for processing. An approach to addressing this issue is to use pre-trained artificial intelligence models to process images on-board the satellite, but this is difficult given the constraints within a satellite's environment. This paper provides an up-to-date and thorough review of research related to image processing on-board Earth observation satellites. The significant constraints are detailed along with the latest strategies to mitigate them.