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Painting the Ocean

Mike Caprio edited this page Mar 23, 2018 · 12 revisions

Design software to identify the fate and transport of an oil patch in the surfzone using drone imagery

Hackathon Findings

Hackathon Projects

Background

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are relatively small, remotely operated aircraft that are becoming increasingly popular as environmental surveying platforms. Their ability to fly in any direction greatly simplifies launching and landing procedures, making them an ideal instrument for monitoring otherwise difficult-to access and highly dynamic areas, in particular surfzones (Brouwer et al 2014).

The Surfzone Coastal Oil Pathways Experiment examined the surfzone control on oil transport on a sandy, rip channeled beach with a crescentic outer bar system was performed on Fort Walton Beach, Florida, in December 2013. Several done missions were flown with varying Rhodamine water tracing dye releases to measure the spread of the dye along the coast.

Evolution of a dye cloud over a domain of (O)(100 x 100 m). Photo credit to Dr. Reniers and Dr Brouwer

One of the fundamental and unresolved questions in surfzone dynamics is how to predict the transport (spread + advection) of a patch of oil along the coast. The overarching goal here is to use machine learning and data mining approaches (eg artificial neural networks) to predict dispersion (spread) and advection estimates of pollutants in the surfzone.


Solutions

    • A "deep dream" oil spill generator. Can we train a deep learning neural network using drone imagery to predict transport of oil spills?
  • Anything else you can think of!

Resources


Challenge owner: David Lindo