LAMP

Campo Mourão, Paraná State | Leveraging AI/ML for plastic marine debris

Awards & Nominations

LAMP has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!

Global Nominee

BOIA: The sea is for fish, not for plastic.

High-Level Project Summary

The creation of the BOIA project seeks to monitor, detect and quantify plastics in coastal areas. Making the collected information available on a web-based system for scientists, remote sensing experts, as well as policy makers and regulators, will also be made available to the open public. The great importance of this project lies in the contribution provided by the rich information made available to help with the biggest problems of tracking, quantifying and locating plastic debris in the ocean. Therefore, marine fauna and habitats, quality of life in coastal communities, navigation safety may be less affected by these problems.

Link to Project "Demo"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2jNvCvvpSY

Link to Final Project

https://www.boia.galleguillos.me/

Detailed Project Description

Hardware and Software

The BOIA project consists of a floating instrument (buoy) tracked by GPS with a 360 camera attached to its body, powered by solar plates.

Buoy: the body material would be synthetic rubber to avoid damage caused by vessel crashes, strong storms and so on. Its bottom has a balancing mechanism to keep it always in the right position, no matter the situation. Its top would be occupied by the 360 camera providing a privileged view of the maritime area.
360 Camera: To maintain your privileged view of your surroundings you would need a 360 camera to capture every detail at all angles, motion, speed, direction and image recognition to feed the database.
GPS (Global Position System): through satellite technology, it would be possible to monitor, in real time, the buoy's path and make it available on the website in order to assist in scientific studies and research related to the analysis of the flow and behavior of plastic on the Brazilian coast.
AI (Artificial Intelligence): Through 360 cameras it would be possible to do image recognition to detect what would be plastic or not. Thus, the behavior pattern of these plastics on the Brazilian coast could be analyzed.

How it works?

Through information collected by NASA's Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) satellite and Earth Observation System (EOSDIS) data collecting information on ocean circulations, winds and heat exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere, 360 buoy camera will be stored in the NASA database and, in addition to being made available on the platform, they will be assigned to a machine learning algorithm and calculated in order to predict the behavior of plastic on the Brazilian coast provided by the pattern studied with Artificial Intelligence and with recognition of Image. Thus, through the web platform, it would be possible to analyze data from each buoy distributed at strategic points along the Brazilian coast.

For the analysis of the data collected by the buoy, a platform was developed providing information such as: geolocation, approximate area of the plastic, wind and buoy speed and direction. In addition, the camera attached to the equipment allows real-time viewing of the location that will be broadcast live on the site.

The goal of the BOIA project is to map and analyze data on waste in the oceans, providing data and analysis to governments and NGOs with information received from buoys scattered across the open sea. With all the data provided by the platform, our objective is, in addition to assisting in studies and research, it would be a form of prevention so that the debris can be collected by the responsible entities before reaching the seabed, further preserving the marine fauna on the coast.

With the mapping provided by our platform, it would be possible to have an overview of the distribution of plastics around the back, thus making it possible to have a vision of the problem for a quick preventive action so that this material becomes difficult to collect. Thus, the direct positive consequences of this project would be the preservation of fauna and their marine habitats. In addition, indirect impacts would also be notorious, such as an increase in the quality of life of coastal communities and the safety of navigation close to the coast.

Space Agency Data

The data used in our project were made available by the Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) of the Earth Observation System (EOSDIS) for analysis of oceanic activities such as winds, ocean circulations, heat exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere. Data provided by the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) would also be used to locate plastics in the ocean. Our main inspiration for the BOIA project were the problems faced by Brazilian coastal regions that suffer from waste that flows into the sea, mainly plastics, causing major impacts on marine life. Thus, the Garbage Patch Visualization Experiment available at NASA Scientific Visualization Studio exemplifies very well our project serving as inspiration. Thus, we decided with incremental innovations together with other technologies to idealize and prototype the BOIA project.

Hackathon Journey

For us participating in this hackathon was a unique and remarkable experience.

We noticed that Brazilian beaches, more and more, have more and more rubbish on their shores and marine animals end up suffering greatly from it, our intention was to help NGOs and companies that are interested in, in addition to collecting plastic, rescue animals that suffer from the problem and after research and conversations we were able to create the Buoy.

From the moment of brainstorming to research and prototyping, the team remained firm on the idea and very proud of being able to develop something that could be presented to the whole world.