5A. Satellite imagery – a powerful tool

Satellite imagery is a powerful tool to provide us with information on a regular
basis, but also when significant events such as a natural disaster occur.
However, processing images to provide the information that is actually needed
contains still a lot of manual work which is expensive and errorprone. At
Örebro University, we have developed a number of techniques that allow for
fast and automatic analysis of satellite images so that objects are recognized
and their spatial topology is identified. These techniques combine modern
methods in artificial intelligence, such as deep learning and symbol grounding,
so that computers automatically learn about objects and entities. Fusing this
information with data from Open Street Map or other spatial data sufficiently
fast for capturing the real-time status of an environment then allows human
users to query maps using natural language.