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Oct.
26, 2006: The Indonesian volcano Talang on the island
of Sumatra had been dormant for centuries when, in April 2005,
it suddenly rumbled to life. A plume of smoke rose 1000 meters
high and nearby villages were covered in ash. Fearing a major
eruption, local authorities began evacuating 40,000 people.
UN officials, meanwhile, issued a call for help: Volcanologists
should begin monitoring Talang at once.
 Little
did they know, high above Earth, a small satellite was already
watching the volcano. No one told it to. EO-1 (short for "Earth
Observing 1") noticed the warning signs and started monitoring
Talang on its own.
Indeed,
by the time many volcanologists were reading their emails
from the UN, "EO-1 already had data," says Steve
Chien, leader of JPL's Artificial Intelligence Group.
Right:
A Landsat photo of Indonesia's Talang volcano. [More]
EO-1
is a new breed of satellite that can think for itself. "We
programmed it to notice things that change (like the plume
of a volcano) and take appropriate action," Chien explains.
EO-1 can re-organize its own priorities to study volcanic
eruptions, flash-floods, forest fires, disintegrating sea-ice—in
short, anything unexpected.
Is
this real intelligence? "Absolutely," he
says. EO-1 passes the basic test: "If you put the system
in a box and look at it from the outside, without knowing
how the decisions are made, would you say the system
is intelligent?" Chien thinks so.
And
now the intelligence is growing. "We're teaching EO-1
to use sensors on other satellites." Examples: Terra
and Aqua, two NASA satellites which fly over every part of
Earth twice a day. Each has a sensor onboard named MODIS.
It's an infrared spectrometer able to sense heat from forest
fires and volcanoes—just the sort of thing EO-1 likes to study.
"We make MODIS data available to EO-1," says Chien,
"so when Terra or Aqua see something interesting, EO-1
can respond."
EO-1
also taps into sensors on Earth's surface, such as "the
USGS volcano observatories in Hawaii, Washington and Antarctica."
Together, the ground stations and satellites form a web of
sensors, or a "sensorweb," with EO-1 at the center,
gathering data and taking action. It's a powerful new way
to study Earth.
Chien
predicts that sensorwebs are going to come in handy on other
planets, too. Take Mars, for example: "We have four satellites
orbiting Mars and two rovers on the ground. They could work
together." Suppose one satellite notices a dust storm
brewing. It could direct others to monitor the storm when
they fly over the area and alert rovers or astronauts—"hunker
down, a storm is coming!"
 Right:
Artist's concept of a moon rover. [Larger
image]
On
the Moon, Chien envisions swarms of rovers prospecting the
lunar surface—"another good application," he says.
What if one rover finds a promising deposit of ore? Others
could be called to assist, bringing drills and other specialized
tools to the area. With the autonomy of artificial intelligence,
these rovers would need little oversight from their human
masters.
Yet
another example: the Sun. There are more than a half-a-dozen
spacecraft 'out there' capable of monitoring solar activity—SOHO,
ACE, GOES-12 and 13, Solar-B, TRACE, STEREO and others. Future
missions will inflate the numbers even more. "If these
spacecraft could be organized as a sensorweb, they could coordinate
their actions to study solar storms and provide better warnings
to astronauts on the Moon and Mars," he points out.
For now,
the intelligence is confined to Earth. The rest of the Solar
System awaits.
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Author: Dr. Tony
Phillips | Editor:
Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA
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