Artificial Intelligence pioneered at Oxford to detect floods launches into space

The work is a first step towards relaying real time information from space to disaster response teams. The Oxford team has developed a machine learning / artificial intelligence model called'Worldfloods' designed specifically for deployment in specialized hardware in space on low-cost satellites in Low Earth Orbit. The model is a flood segmentation model that has the purpose of detecting flood events and significantly improving disaster response operations. It has major implications in bringing down the cost of such technologies and making it accessible for low income countries. Atilim Güneş Baydin, based at the Departments of Engineering Science and Computer Science, Oxford, said: 'This will be the first time a machine learning model for this type of task will be actually deployed in space.