Towards the application of neuromorphic computing to satellite communications

Artificial intelligence (AI) has recently received significant attention as a key enabler for future 5G-and-beyond terrestrial wireless networks. The applications of AI to satellite communications is also gaining momentum to realize a more autonomous operation with reduced requirements in terms of human intervention. The adoption of AI for satellite communications will set new requirements on computing processors, which will need to support large workloads as efficiently as possible under harsh environmental conditions. In this context, neuromorphic processing (NP) is emerging as a bio-inspired solution to address pattern recognition tasks involving multiple, possibly unstructured, temporal signals and/or requiring continual learning. The key merits of the technology are energy efficiency and capacity for on-device adaptation. In this paper, we highlight potential use cases and applications of NP to satellite communications. We also explore major technical challenges for the implementation of space-based NP focusing on the available NP chipsets.