The Instituto Tecnológico y de Energías Renovables (ITER), dependent on the Cabildo de Tenerife, in its desire to contribute to sustainable development and the protection of the marine environment, begins the execution tasks of the Perseo project for the monitoring of the marine ecosystem through the processing of multispectral images collected with a solar aerial platform.
Perseo is a multidisciplinary project in which drones, artificial intelligence, sensors and marine science come together with the aim of detecting and identifying hydrocarbon spills, organic pollutants of human origin and waste from and to fish farms in the coastal marine environment. , and at the same time monitor its quality through the continuous analysis of environmental parameters and aerial images.
The project is led by ITER together with a multidisciplinary public-private consortium in the field of marine science and technology made up of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the Canary Islands Ocean Platform and the company Elittoral.
The main objective of Perseo is the development of an autonomous aerial platform, zero emissions and respectful with the environment thanks to the use of 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 integrated into electronic systems capable of running real-time applications to monitor the ocean.
Monitoring the marine ecosystem through the use of drones is a valuable tool for collecting meteorological data, photographing marine life and the topography of the ocean floor, and monitoring water quality, which is essential to know the state of the environment and, therefore, help in making decisions for its best conservation.
The advantages of using drones over ships or planes for ocean monitoring are that they are smaller, cheaper, and easier to maneuver than ships or planes. This implies that they can cover areas that may be too dangerous or inaccessible for other means of transport. They can also fly for longer periods than airplanes, allowing them to collect data for longer times.
In addition, drones can be equipped with different types of sensors and cameras that can collect different data, such as high-resolution images, temperature and salinity measurements, and gas concentration readings.
