ESA Artificial Intelligence Kick-start funding activity opens 14 May

ESA’s Business Applications Kick-start Activities will launch its Artificial Intelligence (AI) strand on 14 May

Registrations are now open for organisations innovating in the area of AI with products or services that can combine AI with space technology.

The Kick-start Activities look at the business opportunity and the technical viability of new applications and services exploiting one or more space assets – Satellite Communications, Satellite Navigation, Earth Observation and Human Space Flight Technology.

Examples of relevant applications where AI and space-based technologies can work together are:

• Retail: AI could analyse geo-referenced satellite data about detected cars in parking lots and merge it with past transactions, website searches and weather forecasts to predict future sales.
• Electric utility:  AI could add benefit by helping to balance the grid by improving forecasts.
• Manufacturing, Transport and Logistics: Factories and manufacturing plants could shorten development cycles, improve engineering efficiency, prevent faults, increase safety by automating risky activities, reduce inventory costs with better supply and demand planning, and increase revenue with better sales lead identification and price optimisation.
• Healthcare: Genomics could offer novel market opportunities when combined with AI and satellite technologies.
• Social good:  Urban planners could benefit from V2I AI systems which would provide insights into traffic, accidents, congestions, construction and parking.  This could aid planners with the design of cities.

This list is by no means exhaustive but demonstrates the variety of sectors where the combined use of AI and space-based technologies could have impact.

To find out more and register for this opportunity, click here.