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N.A. Duursma

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Enhancing Earth Observation Capabilities with Fewer Satellites

Master thesis (2026) - N.A. Duursma, A. Menicucci, J.F.P. Kooij, Gabriele Meoni, Roberto Del Prete
Wildfires spread in hours, ships change course in minutes, and natural disasters evolve faster than most satellites can observe. Current Earth Observation (EO) systems struggle to keep up: wide-area sensors provide coverage but little detail, while high-resolution satellites revisit too slowly.

This thesis, in collaboration with European Space Agency Φ-lab, investigates AI-based Tip and Cue, an EO strategy in which a wide field-of-view satellite (“Tip”) detects events and autonomously tasks a high-resolution satellite (“Cue”) for targeted imaging.

An end-to-end mission simulation framework was developed with three components: (1) an Orbital Simulation Framework modelling satellite dynamics, tasking, and pointing; (2) an Off-Nadir Imaging Rendering Pipeline generating off-nadir imagery with geometric and radiometric effects; and (3) an Onboard Detection Module deploying the transformer-based DEIMv2 model. A benchmark was developed and applied to whale detection.

Results show a two-satellite Tip-and-Cue system can approach the performance of a 16-satellite Walker constellation, achieving comparable detection rates, latency, and coverage with an order of magnitude fewer satellites. ...

Autonomous AI drone racing

Bachelor thesis (2020) - D. Borstlap, Friso Dam, R.A. Vos, N.A. Duursma, W. Dziarnowska, V.Y.C.M. Guillet, Y.J. van Haaren, D.W. Huang, Max van Huffelen, Jeroen Riessbacher, G.M. Strunck, C. de Wagter, B. Mercier