NESCA Awardee Projects

SpaceWatch: Deployable Ground-based Sensors for Detection, Tracking and Characterisation of Space Objects for Sustainable Operations and Reliable Communication

Project Lead: Prof. Hubert P. H. Shum
Institution: Durham University
Partner: OpenWorks Engineering
Amount: £64,842
Theme: Space Sustainability

SpaceWatch will deliver a deployable, edge-enabled Space Domain Awareness system that detects, tracks and characterises small objects using ground-based sensors. Space becomes increasingly congested by satellites and debris, making safe operations harder and driving demand for trusted tracking information. Working with North East company OpenWorks Engineering, we will integrate Durham’s AI, telescope and digital twin expertise with market-ready edge computing hardware to produce a fieldable demonstrator and a clear route to adoption. The system will provide actionable tracking and risk information, which underpins sustainable space operations and improved assurance for Earth-space communications, strengthening regional capability and accelerating commercial opportunities.

More about the Project Lead:

Prof. Hubert P. H. Shum is a Professor of Visual Computing and the Director of Research of the Department of Computer Science at Durham University, specialising in modelling spatio-temporal information with responsible AI. He is also a Co-Founder and the Co-Director of Durham University Space Research Centre. He has authored over 200 research publications in the fields of Computer Vision, Computer Graphics and AI in Healthcare, underpinned by Responsible AI designs and algorithms. His work has been featured in leading venues such as CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, SIGGRAPH, MICCAI, IEEE TVCG and IEEE TIP. To develop his team, he has led research projects as the Principal Investigator awarded by EPSRC, the Ministry of Defence, the Royal Society and Innovate UK. He has also been a Co-Investigator in CE4Space – a €4.48 mil Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions project to promote space’s circular economy. To engage the academic and industrial networks, he has chaired international conferences such as Pacific Graphics, BMVC, ACM SIGGRAPH/Eurographics SCA and ACM SIGGRAPH MIG.