An Intelligent Heterogeneous On-Orbit Computing System for Optical Satellites

Optical satellites with infrared, visible light, multi-spectral and hyper-spectral cameras, are effective means to achieve multi-targets surveillance. In the scenarios of ultra-high data rate and high temporal sensitivity, it is difficult to transmit high-volume data from the satellite to the ground due to the limited satellite-to-ground data transmission link. Therefore, on-orbit computing becomes a superior choice. In this paper, an intelligent heterogeneous system is proposed for on-orbit computing of optical images. Key technologies, including lightweight intelligent processing algorithms, intelligent heterogeneous platforms and distributed computing, are researched aiming at achieving high performance on-orbit computing. Compared with conventional computing, the proposed on-orbit computing system has advantages of low cost, low power consumption, high timeliness and high integration, providing support for the construction of an efficient intelligent space-based optical surveillance system.