Intelligent Space Camera for On-Orbit AI-Driven Visual Monitoring Applications

The Intelligent Space Camera (ISC) is a compact space camera with embedded Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence capabilities, that can address applications requiring high-throughput smart processing directly at source. The camera, incorporating both hardware and software elements, is being developed in the frame of an ESA co-funded project to support space situational awareness, visual FDIR, and docking applications, among others. The camera, built around the Myriad X Vision Processing Unit (VPU), supports RTSP streaming, H.265 encoding, dynamic remote reconfiguration, and in-line AI stream processing at framerate, all directly on-camera. Processing results can be sent to the host as metadata or overlaid on the RTSP stream (e.g., as bounding boxes). This paper describes the system in its current form from a software and hardware point of view, as well as its key features and main use cases.