SAT-Edge-Agent: Hardware-in-the-Loop Edge-Agent for Onboard Satellite Intelligence

A recent preprint on arXiv (2608.03728) presents SAT-Edge-Agent, an edge-agent system that integrates hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) technology for onboard satellite intelligence. This system operates on a commercial ARM-based heterogeneous edge system-on-chip. It manages a browser workspace alongside a FastAPI agent, utilizing a local OpenAI-compatible language service and a YOLO-style oriented-object-detection endpoint that provides structured results backed by FAIR1M metadata. Two fixed FAIR1M workloads—one involving a single image and another with two images in series—were executed 20 times each, achieving a perfect completion rate. The average latency for the single-image task was 29.353 seconds, while it was 60.937 seconds for the two-image task, with P95 values of 31.166 and 66.882 seconds, respectively. The average detection times were 861.386 milliseconds and 1510.920 milliseconds, representing only 2.93% and 2.48% of the Full-Agent averages. This system is designed to convert mission intent into local tool calls, reveal execution states, and produce machine-readable artifacts while adhering to communication and power limitations. The full paper can be accessed on arXiv.