Principal Investigator, Professor Marina Gashinova, said:
"Space-based infrastructure is rapidly expanding and evolving, encompassing growth and transformations in satellite populations, platform complexity, multi-task missions, disruptive capabilities, and emerging applications. Such growth requires space-based infrastructure that deliver critical services to the Earth population, such as communication, GNSS navigation, Earth Observation, as well as emerging services, e.g., on-orbit servicing and manufacturing, to evolve into highly autonomous systems with improved on-orbit Space Domain Awareness (SDA) capabilities.
In this project, the University of Birmingham and the Alan Turing Institute will combine their expertise and resources to develop a novel end-to-end digital twin (DT) as a testbed for robust and explainable AI-powered exteroceptive sensing and perception systems, based on multi-dimensional high-fidelity on-orbit Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar, with on-board edge computing capabilities and a multi-agent framework for dynamic on-board resource management, task prioritisation and decision making for plans of action given a range of possible scenarios.
This strategic investment positions Birmingham, the Turing and the UK at the confluence of three transformative technological frontiers: Space, AI, and Autonomy.”
Space Minister Liz Lloyd said:
"Space technology benefits people's lives every day - from checking the weather to navigating your car journey home from work. This funding backs the brilliant UK innovators developing the next generation of space technology.
By supporting our space sector, we're strengthening the UK's position as a world leader in space innovation and building technologies that will benefit people across the country for years to come."
The funding further confirms Birmingham's emerging reputation as a leader in RF sensing for space applications. A National and International Hub for Space Sensing Technologies will build on the portfolio of significant projects dedicated to the development of brand-new Space Domain Awareness systems for high-fidelity on-orbit and ground-based radar imagery of Space Objects, funded by DASA, EPSRC, UKSA, with a total budget exceeding £4m. Co-leads, Professors Marina Gashinova and Marco Martorella and colleagues from the Microwave Integrated Systems Laboratory have been leading this work since 2019.
