An Automated Tip-and-Cue Framework for Optimized Satellite Tasking and Visual Intelligence

TL;DR

This paper presents an automated Tip-and-Cue framework for satellite tasking that optimizes imaging schedules using external data, sensor constraints, and AI models, demonstrated through maritime vessel tracking.

Contribution

It introduces a fully automated system for satellite imaging tasking and scheduling that integrates external tips, utility-based optimization, and AI-driven image analysis.

Findings

Effective maritime vessel tracking demonstrated

Automated scheduling improves observation utility

Framework adaptable to various Earth observation applications

Abstract

The proliferation of satellite constellations, coupled with reduced tasking latency and diverse sensor capabilities, has expanded the opportunities for automated Earth observation. This paper introduces a fully automated Tip-and-Cue framework designed for satellite imaging tasking and scheduling. In this context, tips are generated from external data sources or analyses of prior satellite imagery, identifying spatiotemporal targets and prioritizing them for downstream planning. Corresponding cues are the imaging tasks formulated in response, which incorporate sensor constraints, timing requirements, and utility functions. The system autonomously generates candidate tasks, optimizes their scheduling across multiple satellites using continuous utility functions that reflect the expected value of each observation, and processes the resulting imagery using artificial-intelligence-based models, including object detectors and vision-language models. Structured visual reports are generated to support both interpretability and the identification of new insights for downstream tasking. The efficacy of the framework is demonstrated through a maritime vessel tracking scenario, utilizing Automatic Identification System (AIS) data for trajectory prediction, targeted observations, and the generation of actionable outputs. Maritime vessel tracking is a widely researched application, often used to benchmark novel approaches to satellite tasking, forecasting, and analysis. The system is extensible to broader applications such as smart-city monitoring and disaster response, where timely tasking and automated analysis are critical.