Autonomous satellite

The European Space Agency, ESA, has the challenge of increasing the number of satellites in space and keeping them in orbit without colliding with anything. To solve this challenge, they have commissioned the recognized research team in robotics and AI at Luleå University of Technology to find an autonomous solution.

Today, all satellites in space are manuallycontrolled and follow an orbit around the Earth. But if the satellite is about to collide with obstacles such as space debris or an asteroid, a human has to make calculations manually and redirect the orbit. This becomes much more complicated when it comes to dealing with massive satellite constellations. A small change in the direction of a single satellite would affect all other satellites and result in an endless phase of trying to manage, maneuver and recalculate each satellite's orbit.

The researchers at Luleå University of Technology have done a lot of research on autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) that can also be applied to satellites. UAVs and satellites are very similar, both are floating platforms with an orbit. By creating a large network that would allow all satellites to communicate with each other and move as a unit, they can avoid obstacles themselves. If a satellite needs to avoid an incoming object, it will communicate this to the other satellites, and they will move accordingly.

The researchers at Luleå University of Technology have created two satellite platforms that can simulate what this would look like. Using compressed air to simulate antigravity, the platforms circulate in an orbit and carefully avoid any incoming projectiles. The simulation is done in 2D, which means it does not go up and down in the air but instead circles around, hovering a few centimeters above the ground.

Theproject will have a large simulation phase that simulates these 600 satellites in orbit. The simulations will be used to develop and optimize an autonomous software platform that enables the satellites to avoid obstacles themselves. What is currently being tested in a small laboratory at the university and in realistic simulations could one day control thousands of satellites to be launched.

Increasing the number of satellites in orbit would be highly beneficial for many important purposes, such as monitoring climate change on Earth.