AI-Powered ADIS System Revolutionizes Ocean Plastic Pollution Research

Thousands of ships move around the world's oceans all day, every day. So, we thought, how do we convert some of

them into a research fleet with the help of AI? Plastic pollution is one of the

biggest threats our oceans face today. And our mission is to clean it up. In order to solve a problem this

big, we must understand it on a global scale. For us at the ocean cleanup, data is key and specifically for the ocean

project. It will help us to increase the effectiveness of our operations. We've been successful thus far with harvesting

large amounts of plastic. The next step for us is to make sure we operate in those areas where the plastic density is

the highest, the so-called hot spots. And that's why we have our very own research team. In the past, this team

has made a huge effort to cross oceans with vessels and even an airplane to take plastic samples and gather data. In

2016, they went on an aerial expedition to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which taught us that imagery can be a

really good tool to gather data on large floating plastics. However, it was only on one flight and it's not very

scalable. And this got us thinking, how can we use technology to gather this kind of data at an even larger scale?

And that's how ADIS was born. ADIS stands for automated debris Imaging System. It's an intelligent camera

system that uses AI on board. It's a very easy system to install on any ship and it's also highly robust. In order to

fulfill its purpose, ADIS needs to be out on the ocean as much as possible and nothing sees more of the ocean than

ships. With ADIS on board, vessels become part of a massive research network, helping to expand global

coverage of plastic pollution studies. That's why it's a very collaborative project. The first step is

finding a vessel of opportunity and that's where our partners play a crucial role. Today we're at Glover Sunlight

Vessel and this is one of Hyundai's Glous ships. They have been a key partner in getting us the ships of

opportunity required for ADIS and today we're installing an extra unit of this latest generation ADIS.

Hyundai Globus has supported this effort since 2023 as ADIs installation is a core project of our partnership.

The camera's GPS ensures that it turns on automatically only once the ship is no longer in an exclusive economic zone.

So once the vessel is offshore, ADIS gets to work by capturing and processing images. The integrated AI identifies

plastic waste in the water and to save space retains only the relevant parts of the image. When the vessel is close to

shore, it transmits the data to the ADIS database. From there, specialized software combines all collected data and

maps it, generating the ADIS data visualization map. To get to this version, Robin and

his team first had to build a proof of concept using GoPros along with the expertise of Ozone Technologies. They

improved it towards the current version, ADIS 2. ATIS is so groundbreaking that it's part of the United Nations Ocean

Decade as it offers a lowcost solution to monitor and digitally represent plastic debris concentrations in the

ocean. Adis collects data continuously and that allows us to build trends and to look into uh patterns through seasons

but even through years and this allows us to see if cleanup efforts or cleanup policies have an effect. The best part

is that this data will be available open source for everyone to use in the coming years. This is one of the many ways we

are tackling this global crisis that requires urgent action. Plastic pollution is increasingly harming

wildlife and ecosystems and we need to do something about it. Find out more about our mission on our website and

tell us in the comments how would you use AI to accelerate our impact. [Music]