Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Eyes and ears at sea: US Coast Guard to test Saildrone Autonomous MDA capabilities


From SailDrone

Saildrone is using a specially built camera system and advanced acoustic technology combined with machine learning to identify activity at sea.

At sea, a human of average height can see about five kilometers (three miles) on a clear day.
The distance across the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco to Tokyo is about 8,260 kilometers (5,133 miles)—a seemingly impossible distance for any law enforcement organization to monitor.
Maritime domain awareness (MDA) is the effective understanding of anything associated with the safety and security of the global maritime domain, including illegal fishing, drug enforcement, and limiting intrusion into protected marine sanctuaries.

Congress has tasked the United States Coast Guard (USCG) with examining the feasibility, costs, and benefits of improving maritime domain awareness in the remote Pacific Ocean using a low-cost unmanned surface system.
Saildrone unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) have conducted extensive data collection missions around the world, from fisheries missions in the Arctic to bathymetry missions in the Gulf of Mexico, demonstrating their significant potential as a tool for MDA in any area of the ocean.
Being completely silent and capable of missions up to 12 months in duration, Sailrone USVs effectively provide eyes and ears at sea, supporting a variety of ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) objectives.

Saildrone has been awarded a $1.1 million contract by the USCG Research and Development Center (RDC) to conduct a 30-day demonstration of ISR/MDA capabilities in the Central Pacific Ocean.
The goal of the demonstration is to assess low-cost, commercially available autonomous solutions to improve maritime domain awareness in remote regions.
The demonstration will investigate detection ranges, appropriate sensor packages to provide desired outcomes, and the flow of communication between the vehicles and command centers.

Saildrone’s MDA solutions consist of three parts.
First, the vehicles themselves, designed for long-duration missions at sea.
Second, an array of detection sensors including optical cameras, automated identification system (AIS) receivers, and optional radar or infrared cameras for night-time capabilities.
Third, the crucial AI/ML software, which fuses the data from all sensors, recognizes targets of interest, and alerts the end-user appropriately.

Examples of what Saildrone USVs have seen at sea—cargo and cruise ships, fishing vessels, birds, icebergs, and whales.

Saildrone has built an unprecedented proprietary data set of some four million images, representing years of data collection by saildrones at sea.
Just as the ImageNet data set was instrumental in the development of ML algorithms for visual object detection on land, this data set is unlocking new capabilities at sea, a challenging environment where all pixels are moving across each frame.

“Machine learning is teaching computers to memorize patterns. In order to memorize a pattern, you need a lot of examples of that pattern. The data set that we have built is one of the crucial ingredients, allowing us to do what we’re doing,” explained Cory Schillaci, senior machine learning engineer at Saildrone.

Computer vision is based on deep neural networks, also known as artificial neural networks.
The patterns within the collected data set are represented by numbers, which in turn are mathematically mapped to define a model that a computer can be trained to recognize.
Saildrone achieved this over several years, leveraging the industrial-strength large-scale cloud-based compute infrastructure provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS).

“We are excited to see public sector customers continue to utilize the AWS Cloud to drive innovation and spur solutions that allow for missions to be performed better, faster, and in a more secure manner,” said Brett McMillen, general manager of the US Federal Civilian & Ground Station for AWS.
“Using AWS, Saildrone developed autonomous maritime domain awareness solutions that leverage machine learning and help support the US Coast Guard’s efforts to monitor activity from the surface layer to the deep ocean.”

Saildrone's small and medium unmanned surface vehicle MDA solutions.

When it comes to machine learning, people often think that the exciting part is in training the model, but in reality, the work is in the data collection and annotations, and efficiently deploying the model on an embedded system—in this case, an autonomous vehicle with a limited supply of solar power.

Typically, neural networks are run using specialized hardware called a graphics processing unit (GPU), which consume hundreds of watts of power.
Saildrone’s USVs are powered exclusively by solar energy, which is shared between data collection, storage, navigation, and communication operations.
“A significant part of the work that we’ve done is in making our models run in a low-power environment,” said Schillaci.

The “eyes” of the Saildrone MDA solution are in a specially built 360° camera system, integrated with a GPU.
The cameras capture images on a very high frequency and the ML model scans the images looking for one of the patterns it’s been trained to find, such as an illegal fishing vessel off the coast of Hawaii.
When a vessel has been identified, the vehicle sends an alert to users in real time.
Advanced acoustic technology provides the “ears” for sub-surface maritime domain awareness.

The Saildrone MDA solution integrates machine learning with automatic identification system (AIS) information to not only identify the presence of a vessel but identify that vessel using its Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI) number including registration and country of origin.

This proof-of-concept mission on behalf of the USCG will take place in a 52-square-kilometer (20 sq.
mi.) area of the Central Pacific about 30 nautical miles south of Oahu, Hawaii.
Three Saildrone SUSVs will operate in a “picket line” formation, essentially creating an invisible fence to detect any passing vessels.
The primary objectives of the mission are to demonstrate the operational capability of the Saildrone solution and investigate how a small USV system can be effectively used to improve maritime domain awareness in remote areas of the Pacific Ocean.

Saildrone also offers an enhanced surface MDA solution, using its 22-meter (72-foot) medium unmanned surface vehicle (MUSV).
This larger platform offers higher patrol speed and wider detection range, due to significantly higher placement of the sensor array at a height of 15 meters (50 feet).
In addition to the optical cameras and AIS receivers, the MUSV also carries radar and infra-red (IR) cameras, offering night-time detection capabilities.
It comes packaged with the same high-performance AI/ML onboard detection algorithms and alerting system.

When combined with its advanced acoustics sensing suite, the Saildrone MUSV solution offers persistent eyes and ears above and below the sea surface anywhere in the world, redefining ISR/MDA to combat illegal fishing, secure borders, and protect infrastructure.

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Monday, June 29, 2020

Siberia heatwave: why the Arctic is warming so much faster than the rest of the world

Siberia heatwave: why the Arctic is warming so much faster than the rest of the world

From The Conversation by Jonathan Bamber, Professor of Physical Geography, University of Bristol

Temperature anomalies from March 19 to June 20 2020.
Red colors depict areas that were hotter than average for the same period from 2003-2018; blues were colder than average.

On the eve of the summer solstice, something very worrying happened in the Arctic Circle.
For the first time in recorded history, temperatures reached 38°C(101°F) in a remote Siberian town – 18°C warmer than the maximum daily average for June in this part of the world, and the all-time temperature record for the region.

New records are being set every year, and not just for maximum temperatures, but for melting ice and wildfires too.
That’s because air temperatures across the Arctic have been increasing at a rate that is about twice the global average.

All that heat has consequences.
Siberia’s recent heatwave, and high summer temperatures in previous years, have been accelerating the melting of Arctic permafrost.
This is the permanently frozen ground which has a thin surface layer that melts and refreezes each year.
As temperatures rise, the surface layer gets deeper and structures embedded in it start to fail as the ground beneath them expands and contracts.
This is what is partly to blame for the catastrophic oil spillthat occurred in Siberia in June 2020, when a fuel reservoir collapsed and released more than 21,000 tonnes of fuel – the largest ever spill in the Arctic.

So what is wrong with the Arctic, and why does climate change here seem so much more severe compared to the rest of the world?
Smoke from wildfires cloaks the skies over Siberia, June 23 2020.

The warming models predicted

Scientists have developed models of the global climate system, called general circulation models, or GCMs for short, that reproduce the major patterns seen in weather observations.
This helps us track and predict the behaviour of climate phenomena such as the Indian monsoon, El Niño, Southern Oscillations and ocean circulation such as the gulf stream.

GCMs have been used to project changes to the climate in a world with more atmospheric CO₂ since the 1990s.
A common feature of these models is an effect called polar amplification.
This is where warming is intensified in the polar regions and especially in the Arctic.
The amplification can be between two and two and a half, meaning that for every degree of global warming, the Arctic will see double or more.
This is a robust feature of our climate models, but why does it happen?
Fresh snow is the brightest natural surface on the planet.
It has an albedo of about 0.85, which means that 85% of solar radiation falling on it is reflected back out to space.
The ocean is the opposite – it’s the darkest natural surface on the planet and reflects just 10% of radiation (it has an albedo of 0.1).
In winter, the Arctic Ocean, which covers the North Pole, is covered in sea ice and that sea ice has an insulating layer of snow on it.
It’s like a huge, bright thermal blanket protecting the dark ocean underneath.
As temperatures rise in spring, sea ice melts, exposing the dark ocean underneath, which absorbs even more solar radiation, increasing warming of the region, which melts even more ice.
This is a positive feedback loop which is often referred to as the ice-albedo feedback mechanism.

Melting Arctic sea ice is increasing warming in the region.
Jonathan Bamber, Author provided

This ice-albedo (really snow-albedo) feedback is particular potent in the Arctic because the Arctic Ocean is almost landlocked by Eurasia and North America, and it’s less easy (compared to the Antarctic) for ocean currents to move the sea ice around and out of the region.
As a result, sea ice that stays in the Arctic for longer than a year has been declining at a rate of about 13% per decade since satellite records began in the late 1970s.

In fact, there is evidence to indicate that sea ice extent has not been this low for at least the last 1,500 years.
Extreme melt events over the Greenland Ice Sheet, that used to occur once in every 150 years, have been seen in 2012 and now 2019.
Ice core data shows that the enhanced surface melting on the ice sheet over the past decade is unprecedented over the past three and a half centuries and potentially over the past 7,000 years.

In other words, the record-breaking temperatures seen this summer in the Arctic are not a “one-off”.
They are part of a long-term trend that was predicted by climate models decades ago.
Today, we’re seeing the results, with permafrost thaw and sea ice and ice sheet melting.
The Arctic has sometimes been described as the canary in the coal mine for climate breakdown.
Well it’s singing pretty loudly right now and it will get louder and louder in years to come.

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Sunday, June 28, 2020

Bromdog's risky business


Matt Bromley and friends chase the riskiest waves around the globe.
The film climaxes with the 2016 El Nino Hawaii season,
where they score the best ever season out at Jaws.
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Saturday, June 27, 2020

Coexistence

Below the surface of the oceans, a sheer diversity of creatures dwell in harmony - mantas fly, sharks flash by, fish twirl around vibrant reefs.
It’s a dance that they have been dancing for millions of years.
A cosmic symphony.
A story of coexistence.
We must learn from it and come together to protect the future of our blue planet.

It all started in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, on the island of Moorea.
Here, coral reefs shape our lives below and above the surface of the ocean.
We owe them everything: from every single wave we surf to every bite of food we eat and every breath of air we take.
Today, we are on the edge of losing an entire ecosystem.
Coral reefs, as bountiful and beautiful as we have once known them, are going extinct.
But every edge leads to a new beginning.
Join us to save them and spread the word about this crisis that affects all of us.
Three years ago, we created our own movement, today we start changing history.
Although it may appear a big endeavor, it can all start by fixing one broken coral.
Adopt corals on our website
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Friday, June 26, 2020

Sea of troubles : Covid-19 has led to a pandemic of plastic pollution

As the world produces more protective equipment—and gorges on takeaways—pity the ocean

From The Economist

The Thames has always been a reflector of the times, says Lara Maiklem, a London “mudlark”.
Ms Maiklem spends her days on the river’s foreshore foraging for history’s detritus, from Roman pottery to Victorian clay pipes.
She can tell the time of year, she says, just by the type of rubbish she has to sift through: champagne bottles during the first week of January; footballs in summer.
The year 2020 has left its own mark.
Since the coronavirus reached Britain the mud has sprouted a crop of latex gloves.

In February, half a world away, Gary Stokes docked his boat on Hong Kong’s isolated Soko Island.
Soko’s beaches are where OceansAsia, the conservation organisation he runs, sporadically records levels of plastic pollution.
Mr Stokes says he is all too accustomed to finding the jetsam the modern world throws up, such as plastic drinks bottles and supermarket carrier-bags.
But what he documented that day made news across Hong Kong: 70 surgical facemasks on a 100-metre stretch of beach.
Having cleaned it up, he went back four days later.
Like a stubborn weed, the masks had returned.


Whether on the foreshore of the Thames or the deserted beaches of Soko, the planet is awash with pandemic plastic.
Data are hard to come by but, for example, consumption of single-use plastic may have grown by 250-300% in America since the coronavirus took hold, says Antonis Mavropoulos of the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA), which represents recycling bodies in 102 countries.
Much of that increase is down to demand for products designed to keep covid-19 at bay, including masks, visors and gloves.
According to a forecast from Grand View Research, the global disposable-mask market will grow from an estimated $800m in 2019 to $166bn in 2020.

Staggering though such figures are, personal protection is only part of the story.
Lockdowns have also led to a boom in e-commerce.
In March, as parts of America and Europe shut up shop, some 2.5bn customers are reckoned to have visited Amazon’s website, a 65% increase on last year.
In China, more than 25% of physical goods were bought online during the first quarter of the year, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a think-tank in Washington, DC.

Much of what is bought online comes wrapped in plastic—and the bad kind at that.
Goods are often packaged in plastic comprising several layers.
That keeps the contents safe in aeroplane holds and on delivery lorries.
It also makes it nearly impossible to recycle the plastic.
At the same time, the locked-down masses have been consuming home deliveries from restaurants in record numbers.
First-quarter sales at Uber Eats, one of America’s biggest restaurant-delivery apps, for example, rose by 54% year on year.
Every extra portion of curry, or pot of garlic dip, means more plastic waste.

If the public’s increasing appetite for single-use plastic worries environmentalists, then so too does its diminishing inclination to recycle materials that can be reused.
In Athens, for example, there has been a 150% increase in the amount of plastic found in the general-waste stream, says Mr Mavropoulos.
Anecdotal evidence from ISWA members suggests this is a worldwide trend.
An unwillingness to recycle might be explained by people’s nervousness about venturing out to put waste in recycling bins.
Or it might just be that lockdowns have put more pressing matters into their minds, prompting a slip in their diligence.

 "opération mer propre" 
Coronavirus masks and gloves found with a mass of plastic at Golfe-Juan

Covid-19 has led to a glut in plastic waste in other ways.
For one, the pandemic caused a crash in the oil price.
Because petroleum is a major constituent of most plastics, they became cheaper to produce, says David Xi of the University of Warwick.
That in turn gave firms less incentive to use the recycled stuff.
But the growth of plastic rubbish is mainly caused by the fact that municipalities around the world have curtailed their recycling schemes.
Collections have been cut back and plants have been shut over fears about spreading the contagion.
Worries about contaminated rubbish have also made some refuse collectors and sorters nervous about going into work (the virus can survive for about 72 hours on plastic).

All of which means that much of the plastic produced this year is ending up either in landfill sites or being incinerated.
Both could store up future problems.
Landfills, especially in poor countries, are often little more than open dumps.
They are responsible for some of the biggest leakages of plastics into oceans, says Mr Mavropoulos.
Because the material is light, it is easily swept by rain or wind into waterways.

Incineration is not much better.
Again, particularly in the developing world where facilities can be shoddy, not only can burning plastics create toxins, but it also often fails to obliterate the plastic, leaving considerable levels of nano- and micro-particles.
These can both be emitted into the atmosphere, where they can cause cancers, or leach into groundwater and eventually into oceans.

There is no academic consensus on whether plastics in the oceans, once they are broken down by salt and sun into micro-particles, are particularly dangerous to animals.
Polymers, on which plastics are based, are chemically inert, although some additives can be toxic.
But given the huge natural experiment now under way, researchers may soon have a clearer idea.
“We are only just starting to understand the potential impacts of nanoparticles and the way in which they can penetrate into living cells in marine organisms as well,” says Dan Parsons, director of the Energy and Environment Institute at the University of Hull.
“Plastic nanomaterials released into the environment could be the asbestos of the seas.”



Indeed, like the virus itself, pandemic-era plastic pollution is hitting the poor hardest, says Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme.
In low-income countries, 93% of waste goes into open dumps, she says.
And where there are incinerators, they tend to be of low quality.
Even in rich countries, the poor are more likely to live closer to facilities that deal with rubbish, says Ms Andersen.

There are good reasons why the public has turned to plastics, says Mr Parsons: “People know that it protects them” from the coronavirus.
Not only that, points out Ms Andersen, it is hardly fair to blame manufacturers for producing environmentally unfriendly protective equipment—or consumers for buying it—given the global scramble to obtain the materials needed to make the masks and visors that keep health workers and others safe.
And a world in which less plastic is produced would not necessarily be a greener one.
Because the material is light, it often causes lower emissions when it is transported than alternatives do.

But what worries Mr Parsons is that years spent trying to change the public’s attitude towards single-use plastic might now be lost.
Preliminary findings from research his team has conducted suggest that the public has reverted to its earlier insouciance about plastic waste.
The pandemic has already encouraged the rolling back of anti-plastic legislation, such as taxes on single-use grocery bags in some American states, or a ban on plastic straws in Britain.
Ironically, that may even help the climate.
But just as covid-19 has scarred families and harmed livelihoods across the world, its effect on the planet will linger, too, in the world’s landfills and oceans.

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