cs.AIOct 8, 2026

Onboard Marine Anomaly Detection on ΦΦsat-2: From Simulation-Based Development to In-Orbit Demonstration

Authors: Clotilde Szywala, Thomas Goudemant, Marjorie Bellizzi, Benjamin Francesconi, Adrien Girard

Organizations: Institut de Recherche Technologique Saint Exupéry 240 Rue Evariste Galois 06410 Biot, France

Abstract

Onboard Artificial Intelligence can improve responsiveness and bandwidth efficiency of Earth Observation systems by processing data directly on the satellite. This paper presents the experience gained from the development, onboard integration, and post-launch adaptation of a lightweight marine anomaly detection pipeline deployed on the European Space Agency's ΦΦsat-2 mission. The application combines sea segmentation, self-supervised feature encoding of marine regions, generic anomaly detection based on deviations from a normal sea state, and optional characterization of selected anomaly types. Before launch, the pipeline was trained and validated on simulated ΦΦsat-2 imagery to assess algorithmic performance and compatibility with resource-constrained onboard hardware. After integration and functional validation in the mission environment, early experiments on real ΦΦsat-2 acquisitions revealed a significant mismatch between simulated and in-orbit data. The pipeline was therefore retrained on real Level-1 imagery using an improved annotation strategy to better handle ambiguous marine regions, substantially enhancing performance. Beyond demonstrating the onboard feasibility of the application, the ΦΦsat-2 experience highlights the importance of robust annotation strategies and sensor-aware design, and shows that simulation-based development is valuable for pre-flight risk reduction, while reliable scientific validation requires representative in-orbit data and should be clearly distinguished from functional validation.

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