The marine environment supports a diverse range of marine life that is extremely important to global biodiversity. The oceans cover 71% of the Earth’s surface and provide resources that are essential to our economy and quality of life, including climate regulation, erosion prevention, solar energy storage and carbon dioxide absorption. However, the oceans are rapidly deteriorating, primarily due to anthropogenic pollutants. Oil spills, generally characterized as the release of hydrocarbons, can occur at offshore oil platforms, refineries, pipelines, chemical plants, treatment facilities, or in deliberate oil discharges and transportation accidents. Contaminants caused by these substances and other threats such as plastic waste are a major concern in today’s major environmental disasters. This has prompted the introduction of a large number of EU legislative measures and policies as it represents a problem with a significant impact on health and sustainable blue economy.
In this scenario, remote sensing technologies with moderate to high temporal, spectral and spatial resolution on board autonomous platforms such as satellites, UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), gliders and buoys represent the state of the art to identify and monitor these events, some of which are largely unknown to the scientific community. These technologies are expanding the range of new study opportunities related to biophysical variables and identifying the emergence of potential problems.
PERSEO is a multidisciplinary project in which UAVs, artificial intelligence, sensors and marine science come together with the aim of detecting and identifying spills of hydrocarbons, organic pollutants of human origin and waste to and from fish farms in the coastal marine environment, while monitoring their quality through continuous analysis of environmental parameters and aerial images.
The main objective of this project is the development of an autonomous, zero-emission and environmentally friendly aerial platform using solar energy to enhance its autonomy. It will be equipped with different sensors (low-cost multispectral cameras developed specifically for this purpose) and algorithms based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) integrated in electronic systems capable of executing real-time applications to monitor the ocean. This platform will include a precise positioning system that, together with a flight mission planner, will determine the exact location of any anomalous event and allow predicting its temporal evolution. For the validation of the results, PERSEO will make use of a 23 km2 “natural laboratory” at sea in the north of the island of Gran Canaria, managed by the Plataforma Oceánica de Canarias (PLOCAN), partner of the project, which has a Singular Scientific and Technical Infrastructure (ICTS) with a unique combination of services, operations, a multipurpose offshore platform, observatories and test facilities.
In addition to the main objective of the project there are a number of previous technical challenges, such as the determination of the optimal spectral bands for the deployment of in situ ocean observation platforms for this type of applications; the discrimination of different optically active constituents in the water column; the exploration of the use of these technologies for future Earth observation satellites or other advanced aerial autonomous platforms; or their application to detect organic pollutants, petroleum hydrocarbons (APS) and other land-to-sea spills.
