Feasibility study to detect floating debris by hyperspectral mission using onboard ai

The Copernicus Hyperspectral Imaging Mission for the Environment (CHIME) will provide routine hyperspectral observations over the land and coastal zone through the Copernicus Program in support of EU- and related policies for the management of natural resources, assets and benefits [1, 2]. CHIME is an operational mission covering land and coastal areas which already uses of well-established ground processing routines in place that is independent of the AI unit we are discussing here. Areas outside the nominal observation scenario call for new methodologies such as on-board processing which will bring advantages including : fast processing of data, reducing the amount of data to be down-linked especially over ocean that CHIME sensor will be on but there is no regular acquiring plan, capability of on demand request handling. However there are some drawbacks i.e. complex validation and setting up update routines. Therefore, there has been an assessment going on to have an artificial intelligence unit on board to process acquired data and select only part of the data that contains desired targets. Based on the importance of detecting floating plastic debris for applications such as fishing farms preservation, navigation, tourism, etc., in marine environment, this application has been selected to serve as one of the test cases to evaluate Artificial Intelligence (AI) on board [3].