On-Board Volcanic Eruption Detection through CNNs and Satellite Multispectral Imagery

In recent years, the growth of Machine Learning (ML) algorithms has raised the number of studies including their applicability in a variety of different scenarios. Among all, one of the hardest ones is the aerospace, due to its peculiar physical requirements. In this context, a feasibility study, with a prototype of an on board Artificial Intelligence (AI) model, and realistic testing equipment and scenario are presented in this work. As a case study, the detection of volcanic eruptions has been investigated with the objective to swiftly produce alerts and allow immediate interventions. Two Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have been designed and realized from scratch, showing how to efficiently implement them for identifying the eruptions and at the same time adapting their complexity in order to fit on board requirements. The CNNs are then tested with experimental hardware, by means of a drone with a paylod composed of a generic processing unit (Raspberry PI), an AI processing unit (Movidius stick) and a camera. The hardware employed to build the prototype is low-cost, easy to found and to use. Moreover, the dataset has been published on GitHub, made available to everyone. The results are promising and encouraging toward the employment of the proposed system in future missions, given that ESA has already moved the first steps of AI on board with the Phisat-1 satellite, launched on September 2020.