Artificial intelligence to help farmers see cloud-covered fields

A Cornish start-up has developed a technique using artificial intelligence to predict what the surface of the UK looks like under gloomy skies.

The satellite technology is being targeted at the agricultural sector to help farmers better manage their crops.

Cloud too often prevents them from seeing the ground to know where and when to sow seed or apply fertiliser.

Aspia Space's technology can produce a clear synthetic image of fields in all weathers.

Aspia's patented algorithm relies on two types on satellite.

One of them is the European Union's workhorse Sentinel-2 spacecraft, which views the ground at so-called optical wavelengths - the type of light to which our eyes are also sensitive.

But another EU satellite, Sentinel-1, uses radar to map the ground. Its microwave emission has no problem piercing cloud. Indeed, Sentinel-1 will even see the surface in darkness, at night.

P.S: Project is underway by British scholars.