DIOS

Drone based Infrared imaging for Oil Spill detection (DIOS) is a project aimed at spontaneously detecting oil spills in harbours and automatically determining the seriousness of these spills by means of drones. This is linked to the centralisation of communication on the basis of advanced imaging.

The corporate partners will develop concepts for:

• an intelligent drone network where drones can work in turns in case of long operations;
• automatic monitoring and management of oil spills on the basis of the analysis of images from drones, with the timeframe being optimised and staff being deployed efficiently;
• autonomous control systems for vessels and ROVs for clean-up automation in complex environments such as harbours;
• optical, mechanical and thermal integration of an LWIR module and a multispectral SWIR module that can optimally detect and characterise oil spills, decide independently and create alerts for these applications;
• a cost-effective camera technology with 12µm pixel pitch for more detail, incl. control of the sensor’s temperature dependence

The University of Antwerp and the Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO) conduct research into the processing of data for the accurate localisation, detection and assessment of the seriousness of oil spills in complex harbour environments on the basis of imagery from drones, clearly distinguished from other objects in and around the water.