Artificial intelligence technology developed by the Dublin based firm Ubotica Technologies is out of this world, literally.
The CVAI Artificial Intelligence software was launched into orbit on board a PhiSat-1 satellite this morning.
The launch took place from the European Space Agency's (ESA) Vega complex in French Guiana.
Supported by Enterprise Ireland, PhiSat-1 is an ESA funded project that will see deep learning technology deployed for in-orbit processing of earth observation data.
It is the first time the technology has been used on a European satellite and it will enable the data to be processed in space rather than on the ground, with quicker results.
The technology is based on the Irish designed Intel Movidius Myriad 2 Vision Processing Unit.
"This mission is the culmination of two years of effort by Ubotica, in collaboration with ESA, to characterise and prepare the Myriad 2 device for deployment in space," said Aubrey Dunne, Co-Founder and Vice President of Engineering at Ubotica Technologies.
"Myriad’s low-power, high-performance compute is ideally suited to satellite applications, and Ubotica’s AI technology harnesses this compute to effectively address the opportunities that we are seeing emerge in the 'New Space’ paradigm".
Ubotica was founded in 2016 and employs 15 people across offices in Dublin and Spain.
