LABPLAS

2021 - ongoing (2025)

EU Horizon 2020 funded project with a total budget of 5M€.

LABPLAS (Land Based Solutions for Plastics in the Sea) consists of a consortium of 17 partners, encompassing different expertise and specialists with the objective of identifying the main sources of plastics, analyze the transport, accumulation and degradation of these materials in the environment, with a specific focus on river, estuarine and marine compartments. To approach the problem in a comprehensive way different scientific perspectives merge and jointly collaborate within the project: ecotoxicology, hydrology and oceanography, analytical chemistry, plastic industry, environmental modeling, nanotechnology and remote sensing.

Role: Advanced satellite techniques for determination of macroplastics (Definition and collection of EO data; EO data processing; Creation of spectral signatures library; Floating debris detection; Accuracy Assessment).

ECOBLUE

2022 - 2024

EEA Grants funded project with a total budget of 435k€.

Azores ECOBLUE explores the concept of circular and blue economy with a strong component of innovation applied to the development of new by-products and raw materials, from plastic waste and surplus from the sea and fishing sector. The project intends to start on the Azores islands, specifically in São Miguel, Terceira and Faial islands and it is planned to expand to other islands and “beyond borders”.

Role: Identification and characterization of marine-related wastes using state-of-the-art EO satellite data and methodologies.

AEROS

2020 - 2023

Compete2020, Portugal2020, FEDER, FCT, MIT, POAçores2020 funded project with a total budget of 2.8M€.

AEROS (Blue Ocean Constellation) aims to develop and launch into orbit a new nanosatellite as a precursor to a future ocean sensing constellation to deliver tangible scientific and economic value to society. AEROS focuses its development on three key capabilities (1) miniaturized and efficient spectral imaging for forecasting ocean fronts and fauna location, (2) reflectometry for monitoring ocean surface conditions, and (3) flexible software-defined communications modules to support connectivity and network operations with both autonomous vehicles and biologging tagging technology (e.g. for mantas and sharks).

Role: Support the operation and mission requirement definition, looking for the user needs, and communication, dissemination and exploitation of results.

K2D

2020 - 2023

Compete2020, Portugal2020, FEDER, FCT, MIT, POAçores2020 funded project with a total budget of 1.4M€.

K2D (Knowledge and Data from the Deep to the Space) aims to create a global ocean monitoring system using submarine communication and energy transport cables as multifunctional platforms. Such cables normally use repeaters to boost the communication signals, therefore, the main idea lies in taking advantage of these cable junctions to install gateways to upload environmental data collected nearby. These data can be collected using a combination of static and mobile sensors, being the latter guaranteed by means of autonomous underwater vehicles.

Role: Application of the novel Earth Systems models to case studies. Use cases definition and requirements, and pilot demonstration.

PORTXXI

2020 - 2022

ESA funded project with a total budget of 200k€.

Port XXI (Space Enabled Sustainable Port Service) aims to identify and evaluate the deployment of transformative environmental monitoring and management services that could help ports minimize their environmental impact, while keeping operational costs contained by taking advantage of EO, SATCOM and SAT NAV infrastructures, in combination with information gathered from other sources such as CCTV, data repositories, in situ sensors, mobile sensors, using autonomous robotic solutions and incorporating Big Data and AI techniques for automatic knowledge extraction.

Role: Service and system definition.