ESA wildfire Earth observation: onboard AI

The European Space Agency is developing wildfire Earth-observation capability using onboard artificial intelligence. The work is at the development stage.

The approach combines onboard foundation models, uncertainty estimation, digital twins and physics-informed modelling, with the purpose of detecting and predicting wildfires earlier.

The concerns being addressed include false alarms, interference from cloud and smoke, geographic transfer of models between regions, and integration with emergency services.