Feasibility study for the project “Ocean trash program”

The aim of this research project is to assess the feasibility of various techniques for detecting and counting plastic particles micro-pollutants in oceans in an automatic way from any ship.

“Waste patches” or “trash vortex”, islands of rubbish that accumulate in ocean eddies, are gaining ground around the globe. But, despite the magnitude of the issue, the problem remains understudied. Two laboratories from the EPFL are collaborating with Multi One Attitude Foundation and Oceaneye association for a feasibility study for the development of a plastic particles counting system.

This research project will last four months and is conducted by the Hydraulic Machines Laboratory (LMH) and the Signal Processing Laboratory 5 (LTS5) under the supervision of Prof. Jean-Philippe Thiran. It is sponsored by Multi One Attitude Foundation.

Principal investigator Prof. Jean-Philippe Thiran
Project manager Pascal Hagmann
Sponsor Multi One Attitude Foundation 
Period 2012
Laboratory LMH, LTS5
External collaboration Oceaneye
Collaboration TRACE