Vessel Launched Unmanned Aircraft System for Marine Debris Detection and Tracking

Airborne Technologies, Inc. Phase II effort will be to build and demonstrate a low-cost marinized Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) that can be operated easily from small or large vessels and is capable of reliable and repeatable operations in an ocean environment. The UAS will be utilized for the detecting and tracking of marine debris, sea-life or other objects in the open ocean. The system includes a small UAS deployable buoy that will communicate its GPS position back to the vessel via a satellite communication network. Using anomaly detection software designed under this project, the UAS will locate items in the water and either autonomously or through remote operator input, mark the location of the anomaly by deploying a tracking buoy. A number of imaging sensors will be tested and evaluated for effectiveness in open ocean detection of various targets, both biological and anthropogenic. The data can be processed or stored either onboard the aircraft or transmitted back to the vessel. The complete system will be robust and designed with simple user interaction in mind; it will be portable, adaptable and scalable to a variety of vessels and applications.