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Terma Delivers AI Model for Denmark’s Surveillance Satellite

BIFROST Satellite Launches in 2024

The Danish MoD has contracted Danish partners for development and deployment of an AI-based surveillance satellite to monitor the nation’s arctic regions. Terma provides the AI model for the satellite, which has recently completed its Preliminary Design Review (PDR).

Denmark’s defence authorities have an increasingly important challenge in surveillance and intelligence gathering in the Arctic area: a major task is detection of different types of land, maritime and aerial activity in the area. The monitoring of such activity from space can assist in the task of enforcing sovereignty and contribute to other operational tasks, such as search and rescue, as well as provide input for the day-to-day operational planning.

Terma is collaborating with several national and international partners, including Space Inventor, Gatehouse SatCom and the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). The resulting joint mission will be able to provide information on applied AI in space for earth observation missions, as well as detecting ships, oil spills and much more, due to the versatile payloads on-board.

The project, known as BIFROST, is a satellite-based system for advanced on-orbit image and signal analysis. Its main purpose is demonstrating AI-based surveillance from space, with the aim of establishing a platform to gain further experience in AI-based surveillance and sensor fusion, using multiple on-board sensors.

Terma is providing the AI model used for the system. The satellite will also test means of communication directly between different satellites to achieve real-time access to the intelligence data, thereby demonstrating the feasibility of Tactical Earth Observation. This will demonstrate that the presence of a specific activity can be detected and reported to the operational ground controller in real time.

The satellite mission includes evaluating the capability of changing AI models during the mission lifespan, making it possible for the AI core to learn the characteristics of new subjects of interest, thereby constantly adding to the capabilities of the surveillance system. Terma believes the project has the potential to form a broad national foundation for the space technology needed to support Danish Defence in the future, and will be a steppingstone towards a future international cooperation regarding space-based surveillance activities of common interest.

The project’s first milestone was achieved with completion of the PDR, part of the process ensuring the technical design meets the set requirements for a high-performance AI satellite supporting operational activities in the Arctic. The next step is the Critical Design Review, in which the AI models are developed, and detailed design of the payload and spacecraft completed. The satellite is planned for launch in early 2024.

 

The BIFROST satellite is scheduled for launch early in 2024. (Terma)

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Publish date

01/27/2023

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