SeaClear - SEarch, identificAtion and Collection of marine Litter with Autonomous Robots
- Delft, Netherlands
- January 2020
- Delft University of Technology
Today's oceans contain 26-66 million tons of waste, with approximately 94% located on the seafloor. The SeaClear project is developing the first solution that exploits autonomous robots for underwater litter collection. We are creating a mixed team of Unmanned Underwater, Surface, and Aerial Vehicles -- UUV, USV, UAV -- to find and collect litter from coastal seabeds. The UAV and an inspection UUV maps the litter. A collection UUVs then collects litter, using a combined suction-gripper manipulator. The UUVs are tethered to offload power and computation to the USV. Our objective is to operate the robots autonomously, without remote human intervention.
- Closed source
- Public
Project stage (in ):
Beta/Testing
Implemented by:
Project consortium
Industrial Sectors:
Water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities, Environmental cleanup
Usage of AI:
Computer Vision, Robotics
Generation of AI:
Traditional Machine Learning (Linear Regression, CART, SVM, etc.), Deep Learning (CNN, Transformers, etc.)
Model training:
Supervised Learning, Reinforcement Learning
Contact
Responsible Person
Delft University of Technology
Motivation and values
What in your view defines the public interest and how does your project meet this purpose?
The project tackles the issue of marine litter, which is of key social and environmental issue, of key importance to the public.
How did the idea of your project come about?
Other
What is the goal of your project in relation to the public interest?
Autonomous robotic collection of marine litter.
Did you follow one or more guidelines for ethical AI, and if yes, which one?
European Union - Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI
Guiding Values
What are your top 5 guiding-values for the project? Top 1
Safe system operation for humans and marine life
What measures do you use to implement this value? Top 1
Clear ethics guidelines and plans involving human data protection and protection of marine life
What are your top 5 guiding-values for the project? Top 2
Efficient detection and collection of litter
What measures do you use to implement this value? Top 2
Clearly defined KPIs and system development targeted to achieve them
Design & Safeguards
Which stakeholders were involved in the process of development and implementation of the project?
External domain expert, Academic researcher, Industry partners
How did you engage relevant stakeholders?
Oversight board, Co-creation process
Have the project results been validated by third parties?
No
Have the design and the results of the project been made transparent to the public?
Yes
In what way have the design and the results of the project been made transparent to the public?
By academic researchers
Involving the people who will be affected by the project is a necessary part of the project design
2
Which direct channels for feedback exist?
Contact form on the website, full list of persons involved.
How did you verify the accuracy and robustness of your system?
Ongoing tests in demonstrator environments
What technical and organizational safeguards have you implemented to protect personal data and mitigate possible harms? Choose all that apply
Data minimization (incl. not gathering personal data), Authentication and access management, User control (consent, update, retract)
Is your project directly or indirectly contributing to solutions for the climate crisis or other UN sustainability goals?
Directly
Please elaborate
We contribute to the sustainability goals of (6) Clean Water and Sanitation and (14) Life Below Water.
Does your project rely partly or fully on the use of open data and/or publish results in an open data set? Please elaborate.
We will make available several data sets, per the following plan: https://seaclear-project.eu/images/deliverables/SeaClear_D_1_1.pdf