Starion is providing artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to the Electronic Attack Resilient System (ECATE) project, which is developing a payload to protect communications systems. Funded by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), ECATE will leverage advanced AI techniques to cover the detection, classification and mitigation phases.
Satellites play a crucial role in providing ubiquitous global communications, supporting a wide range of operational needs. Historically, they have been more resilient than ground-based systems but this resilience is being challenged by the increasing congestion of the electromagnetic spectrum due to the proliferation of SmallSats and constellations. The 18-month ECATE project has been designed to address these challenges.
Working as part of a consortium led by Italian company Intecs for the Italian Space Agency (ASI), Starion is developing AI and machine learning technologies for a sophisticated end-to-end pipeline within ECATE.
“The AI components of ECATE are central to its functionality. By combining cognitive intelligence with machine learning, ECATE will rapidly detect, classify and respond to interference or disruptions in the electromagnetic spectrum,” explained Andrea Cavallini, Starion’s AI and ML Competence Area Lead. “Over time, the machine learning aspect of ECATE will also build a ‘memory’ of past interference scenarios and successful mitigation strategies, which will enhance its capability to anticipate and counter new threats. This will allow ECATE to continuously improve its ability to protect space assets.”
ECATE is built as a three-stage chain of AI models: detection, classification and mitigation. The outcome will be targeted AI-driven strategies based on two specialised AI models that will implement the most appropriate response to create a closed-loop mechanism.
