GeoScanSat: Design of a CubeSat for Illegal Mining Monitoring System based on YoLov8

This work presents the development of a CubeSat to detect illegal mining activities through remote sensing combined with riverine sensor modules. The CubeSat is the central processing unit, receiving environmental data transmitted via LoRa technology from modules distributed along rivers. The collected data (pH, electrical conductivity, and temperature) are tagged with geographic coordinates. The modules transmit data upon anomaly detection, activating the CubeSat imaging near the sensors' region. An embedded YOLOv8 algorithm locally analyses the captured images to classify the event and send the metadata to a server. A ground test validated the mission as proof of concept.