Aitech’s New Palm-Sized Satellite Enables Space-Based AI Processing

April 21, 2025

By Woodrow Bellamy III

A computer generated image of IQSat, Aitech's new AI-enabled picosatellite constellation platform. (Image: Aitech)

Aitech's new IQSat picosatellite constellation platform is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, and comes equipped with commercial off the shelf (COTS) computing modules and embedded algorithms that make artificial intelligence (AI) processing in space a reality for a wide variety of new applications and markets.

The Chatsworth, California-based rugged embedded systems provider unveiled IQSat during the 40th annual Space Symposium held in Colorado recently. According to an April 7 Aitech press release , IQSat has been developed as a picosatellite constellation platform that is available individually or for constellations of several thousand. Aitech is currently working with an unnamed customer on a constellation that will feature hundreds of IQSats. The company is making the new modular picosatellite platform available to customers beginning in the fourth quarter of 2025.

In its "Small Spacecraft Technology State of The Art 2024" report published in February, NASA defines picosatellites as one of three SmallSat categories — the other two being microsatellties and nano satellites. Picosatellites, according to the report, have a mass of 1 - 0.01 kg. “Since 2023 there has been an influx of constellations of mini-class small spacecraft with a mass of 201 – 600 kg, as well as a new generation of larger small spacecraft constellations weighing 600 – 1,200 kg,” the report says.

During an interview with Aerospace & Defense Technology (A&DT), Pratish Shah, Aitech’s U.S. General Manager, explained how IQSat has flexible payload options and consumes 30 watts of continuous power in sunlight. It has an operational life of up to three years. IQSat has been developed for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) missions.

A key element of IQSat is how it leverages the "Watchman for Space" product developed by Pennsylvania-based data analytics provider Intuidex, Inc. The company describes Watchman 4 Space as a “space data as a service” application that uses “High-Order Low-Resource Learning (HO-LRL) algorithms to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and space-domain awareness via pattern of life and anomaly detection.”

Intuidex’s pattern of life and anomaly detection algorithms — when featured within a fleet of picosatellites, such as IQSat — can give users both real time situational awareness or early warning and detection surveillance. Aitech further notes that the Watchman for Space software supports “rapid do-it-yourself user-based modeling, detection and tracking.” Working with Aitech, customers leverage Watchman for Space to determine what type of surveillance or detection their IQSat fleet will be performing. Those parameters can be adjusted while the fleet is in-orbit.

IQSat’s pattern of life and detection algorithms could be used by military forces to deliver critical information on threat locations, directions and velocities within a specific area or region of interest, according to Aitech’s product overview . Aitech’s engineering leadership sees the embedded AI processing and machine learning algorithms crunching numbers onboard IQSat while in-orbit as a major differentiator from other available picosatellites.

As explained to A&DT during a tour of Aitech’s facility ahead of the release of IQSat, the cost of down-linking data from satellites today can be prohibitively expensive for commercial organizations, research firms and government agencies. Instead of sending raw data from space like most satellites do today, the Watchman for Space algorithms combine with Aitech’s embedded computing modules to analyzes the captured data onboard. IQSat can be programmed to downlink only the information or updates needed by the end user.

“Space-based infrastructure solves big problems and fuels big advancements on Earth. The new IQSat platform is integral to space accessibility by delivering low cost, rapid deployment constellations that provide access to actionable information quickly and frequently for infinite applications,” said. “Whether used for military and defense, environmental or agricultural applications, communications or scientific research, the flexibility, cost and availability of a solution like IQSat has not existed before – providing more accessibility to the power of space.”

Look out for more details about the design and development of IQSat in the upcoming June issue of A&DT.