Remote airbone platform with satellite oversight dependency for maritime monitoring

In 2019, 2904 shipping accidents and 37 oil spills involving EU countries or their interests were recorded. ESA-coordinated RAPSODY uses GNSS, satellite communications and EO services to enhance maritime monitoring, improving maritime safety and responses to maritime pollution.

Source: European Maritime Safety Agency EMSA

The RAPSODY service aims at radically changing the way maritime pollution monitoring and search operations are performed, by creating and demonstrating the use of an advanced RPAS-centric system to support them. RAPSODY mainly targets the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) and aims at supporting EMSA in providing services to the national/governmental administrations and bodies in charge of maritime safety operations, like Search and Rescue operations, and responding to maritime pollutions, e.g. in case of oil spill events. The service uses GNSS for both RPAS positioning and geo-referencing of collected data; satellite communication capability when in operation in Beyond Radio Line of Sight; and satellite imagery and satellite-AIS data to complement the airborne data products. In addition, RAPSODY is complemented with EMSA services that integrates satellite-AIS data and satellite earth observation information that provides early warning alerts which are used to trigger RPAS operations.