NASA Awards Brazilians for Creating AI Capable of Detecting Oil Leaks in the Ocean

Brazilian Researchers Develop New System Using Satellite Images and Artificial Intelligence to Detect Oil Spills at Sea. Project Recognized and Awarded by NASA.

A group of Brazilians is developing a system that promises to use satellite images, algorithms, and artificial intelligence (AI) to detect the presence of spots caused by oil spills in the ocean. Inspired by Greek mythology, the system was named Poseidon, the God who protects the waters. To give an idea of the innovation, this was one of the winning ideas of the NASA Space Apps Challenge.

Meet the Project of the Brazilians that Was Awarded by NASA

The NASA Space Apps Challenge is an international competition aimed at finding amazing ideas based on data generated by the U.S. space agency to address both terrestrial and space challenges.

The award ceremony took place in March at NASA’s headquarters in the United States capital, Washington. The Brazilian group was formed to participate in the competition. Two of the members already knew each other from a previous competition held by the technology giant IBM. The others were invited to join the project that uses Artificial Intelligence to find oil leaks. Recently graduated in fields related to computing and technology, all members were already working in the private sector.

According to NASA’s competition rules, the entire project by the Brazilians was developed in 48 hours, on the date set for the event in 2019. The researchers learned about NASA’s challenge and have since had the established deadline to present a solution.

According to the data from the project submitted on NASA’s website, an application programming interface (API) could cross-reference data collected by satellites and, using algorithms and AI, more easily identify oil leak points offshore.

As per the description of the Brazilian project, the API could be utilized by third parties and governments, and this detection would enable competent authorities to act quickly in response, reducing environmental disasters and socio-economic impacts.

Environmental Disasters Could Be Prevented More Easily

Felipe Ribeiro Tanso, programmer, designer, and entrepreneur, one of the winning team members, explains how the mechanism works.

The system includes an AI that analyzes images captured by satellites and returns the probability of oil spots existing in a specific area of the ocean, alerting the responsible agencies for monitoring and reducing these accidents. Hence, the project’s goal is to minimize the environmental and socio-economic impacts that could affect millions of lives.

Since the proposal was made available in the form of an API, the system awarded by NASA can be integrated into other software or applications, making it easily applicable. Tanso emphasizes that this allows other tools to use their solution as part of their own systems.

NASA Invites Scientists to Spend Two Days at Its Headquarters

Ricardo Ramos, technologist and data scientist, another team member, states that the method developed by the researchers using AI is based on what are called neural networks. However, an improvement was made. Shortcuts were added to skip two or three layers to make the process faster.

Of the five members involved in the project team, only three attended the award ceremony. According to Tanso, the agenda included two full days at NASA’s headquarters, with recognition and the opportunity to have closer contact with the brilliant scientists responsible for various missions related to space exploration, such as the Artemis mission, which aims to return humans to the Moon.

Tanso emphasizes that just being in Washington and being welcomed at NASA’s headquarters was a significant achievement. It felt like a childhood dream coming true. Space-related topics have always fascinated him, and getting there had a very sentimental appeal for everyone.