European Space Agency News

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Breathing New Life Into Fight to Save the Seas with Artificial Intelligence

and licenses. “The machine learning (system) essentially watches the vessels doing their fishing, works out where their fishing starts and stops and whether they should have been fishing in that location.” That information might be augmented by satellite data from NASA or the European Space Agency.If anything looks amiss, for example a suspected transhipment of people or catch, it gets flagged up to one of OceanMind’s analysts, who can decide what to do next. That usually involves alerting a regulator, who can trigger a deeper investigation.Some of OceanMind's projects are

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How AI Can Help Protect the Oceans

that AI can help find these heat-resilient corals. Without AI, it would have been like trying to find a needle in a haystack.Spotting plastic waste from space would have been almost impossible before AI image detection programs became available. How does it work? Essentially, photos taken by European Space Agency satellites are scanned by AI to spot hidden plastic dumps. Then we refine it over time, to see if these sites are getting bigger – and if they’re close to rivers or lakes, which could carry plastics into the seas and add to the millions of tonnes of turtle-choking, fish-killing

Figure 1. Summary of the method from collecting data on the PML Explorer to model training and plastic detection using the AI algorithm. Image courtesy Plymouth Marine Laboratory

Floating Plastic Litter Detected, Categorized Using AI

scientists from Plymouth Marine Laboratory have ‘trained’ an Artificial Intelligence (AI) model to recognize and classify the different types of marine plastic captured in images shot by a video camera mounted on the side of a boat.Funded by the PML internal research program and the European Space Agency (ESA), the innovative study - titled “Detection and Classification of Floating Plastic Litter Using a Vessel-Mounted Video Camera and Deep Learning” - was carried out as part of an undergraduate placement project, with the results now published in the journal Remote Sensing.The

Credit: Inmarsat

SEA-KIT's USV Equipped with Innovative Connectivity Solution by Inmarsat

, and commercial stakeholders from its base in Tollesbury, Essex. In inaccessible areas, USVs can complete tasks faster, more efficiently, and with reduced risk to personnel than conventional crewed vessels.Last year, SEA-KIT took part in a transatlantic survey project co-funded by the European Space Agency to demonstrate the capabilities of current technologies in deep ocean surveying. In July 2021, the company secured the first Unmanned Marine Systems (UMS) certificate from Lloyd’s Register."SEA-KIT is delighted to trial seamless switching and to work with Inmarsat to increase data

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A Seismic Shift

de-risk subsurface storage, sequestration and geothermal energy sites using its expertise in geological, geophysical, engineering, modeling and monitoring technologies, including instrumentation from Sercel, its equipment division, it said.Also in April, a consortium led by CGG was picked by the European Space Agency’s Space Solutions initiative for a study aimed at developing new environmental monitoring technology and services to help combat the global marine litter crisis.CGG will collaborate with Mott MacDonald, a global engineering, management and development consultancy, and Brunel University

Two Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) from aerial view in the arctic (photo: Michael Schauer)

SPACEWHALE: Space Tech, AI meet to Monitor Whales from the Heavans

Modern space technology and artificial intelligence have combined to enhance the conservation of marine animals: the new service, “SPACEWHALE”, developed by a team of creative scientists in Germany and the UK, detects whales from space. Supported by funding from the European Space Agency (ESA) Space Solutions program, this research enables whales and other large marine megafauna to be surveyed at an unprecedented scale. Earth Observation from satellites is developing fast and within a few years, space technology companies aim to provide daily high-resolution images of the

Credit; CGG

Seismic Data Firm CGG Launches Pollution Monitoring Solution

the creation of a growing evidence base of responsible operations for stakeholders such as operators, regulators, investors and insurers, etc.CGG said that SeaScope provided unique environmental awareness and insight to mitigate risk. The solution was developed with the support of the European Space Agency together with a group of energy companies and emergency response organizations. "This process included a highly successful 12-month prototype demonstration across assets in the North Sea along with select producing regions of the Gulf of Mexico and South-East Asia. SeaScope is highly

The Ocean Cleanup founder & CEO Boyen Slat on the Interceptor 002 in Klang River, Malaysia © The Ocean Cleanup

The Ocean's Microplastics Mess: Technology & Technique to Identify & Clean Up

larger. Macro plastics, which break down into increasingly smaller pieces, can be cleaned from waterways early on, which will significantly reduce the quantity and impact of future microplastics. Dr. Lauren Biermann of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), in conjunction with funding from the European Space Agency (ESA), has been working to detect aggregated patches of plastics using the ESA’s Sentinel-2 satellites and corresponding data archive. “For our work, this meant scouring the archive to choose very clean and clear examples of ‘all things that float on water’ and may

Sea-Kit's Uncrewed Surface Vessel Ends 22-Day Offshore Mission

that.""It is a ground-breaking achievement to prove true over-the-horizon capability and the team are elated to have successfully pushed the boundaries of our USV design once again.” Named UTAS (Uncrewed Trans-Atlantic Survey) and co-funded by the UK Space Agency through the European Space Agency’s Business Application program, the project was originally planned to be trans-ocean.However, due to travel restrictions and other planning complications resulting from COVID-19, this was ultimately not possible, SEA-KIT said.SEA-KIT worked collaboratively with a number of industry

The February 2024 edition of Marine Technology Reporter is focused on Oceanographic topics and technologies.
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