The Blue Economy relates to "sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth," according to the World Bank. In 2018, the American Blue Economy supported 2.3 million jobs and contributed $373 billion to the US GDP. By 2030, the global Blue Economy is expected to double to $3 trillion. Key sector goals include fostering strong, strategic partnerships across industries and national borders to promote sustainable business practices across the globe.
With funding from the United States Department of Energy, MarineSitu has developed environmental monitoring systems for marine energy devices, such as tidal turbines and wave energy converters. Plainsight is working with MarineSitu to provide edge-based vision AI models with its data, training, and management platform to enhance their software with real-time video analytics.
With Plainsight, MarineSitu is poised to deliver powerful vision AI solutions to marine energy customers for continuous underwater monitoring and real-time data processing. Initial projects will use custom computer vision models to detect and classify aquatic wildlife and environmental factors that can impact tidal turbines. Future projects will explore a wide range of opportunities across evolving sea and freshwater industries including aquaculture and underwater observation.
"Our relationship with Plainsight will empower MarineSitu to rapidly accelerate and expand the deployment of our environmental monitoring tools for the emerging marine energy market, research organizations, and new players across the Blue Economy," said James Joslin, President and Principal Engineer at MarineSitu.
"Humans have barely skimmed the surface when it comes to understanding marine environments and enhanced, AI-enabled monitoring capabilities promise to deepen our expertise and unlock more incredible use cases."
"Computer vision tools available to date for underwater monitoring solutions have been incapable of capturing and delivering actionable results, due in large part to data bandwidth and manual processing challenges," said Carlos Anchia, Plainsight's Co-Founder and CEO.
"AI-enabled tools deployed on the edge represent the most effective method for low-latency, low-cost, monitoring and will yield especially valuable insights for underwater detection and protection of vulnerable ecosystems." Anchia added, "We couldn't be more excited to work with MarineSitu to develop solutions that will unlock a wealth of immediate, near-, and long-term opportunities to drive innovation and support sustainability for businesses in the evolving Blue Economy."
Through its Google Cloud partnership and via the Google Cloud Marketplace, Plainsight is providing MarineSitu with its platform, expertise, and deeply integrated vision AI solutions that deliver the production-grade accuracy and scale necessary to safely manage underwater machinery and protect marine populations.
