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The project, part of the ESA Discovery Campaign on Remote Sensing of Plastic Marine Litter, developed a method to estimate floating macroplastic accumulation and transport rates in rivers using remote sensing. It combined the detection of floating water hyacinths using Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-1 with in-situ estimates of macroplastic densities carried by this invasive aquatic weed. Water hyacinths typically form large patches of several meters of width and length, and can thus be detected from space.

The project, renamed in short “Plastic Monitor”, was part of the ESA’s Discovery Campaign on Remote Sensing of Plastic Marine Litter, funded by the Discovery Element of the ESA’s Basic Activities. Plastic Monitor aimed at assessing the feasibility of detection of heavy plastic pollution loads in an Indonesian river by using satellite imagery and ground truth and to demonstrate how Remote Sensing can enhance the quantification and monitoring of plastic input into the marine environment.

‘STARCOP’ is an initiative to use machine learning and multiple satellites with diverse detection capabilities to quickly detect methane leaks and send notifications in near real-time. In this project Trillium Technologies developed machine learning models to automatically detect methane in hyperspectral and multispectral imagery. Their hyperspectral model (HyperSTARCOP) is able to capture more than 90% of plumes in test data while reducing the false positive rate by 39% when compared to state-of-the-art models.

This project is conceived at analysing a secured communication link between a space-based system and a maritime system. The final goal is to serve autonomous navigation vessels, with a possible extension to other smart commercial maritime services and to favour the process towards a highly and full digitalisation of the Port system. The autonomous ship is here considered from an operating point of view, although quite simple and with the purpose of understanding the impact on the telecommunication system. The initial focus is on three possible telecommunication solutions: