Accurate current forecasts are crucial for short-sea shipping routing !
We’re very proud to have won the prestigious iLab national competition for the most innovative French start-ups. With more than 400 applications for the 2023 edition, we are one of the 79 DeepTech companies selected !
The innovative nature of our technology is based on the fusion of multiple satellite data.
At the cutting edge of oceanographic research this fusion of very different physical variables (surface temperature, chlorophyll image and sea level anomaly map) enables us to reconstruct another dynamic variable: ocean surface currents. This is made possible by a learning transfer and recent methods of image analysis using artificial intelligence. We have shown that this technology makes it possible to reconstruct accurate surface currents that are much more reliable than existing numerical models. Our reliability rate for the direction of currents is 75-80%, whereas operational models hardly reached 55-60% of reliability.
Figure These images compare the reliability of surface currents predicted, in the same area and at the same time, by three operational numerical models and those that we reconstruct from satellite data (HIRES-CURRENTS). This comparison was carried out in the Mediterranean Sea, at the exit of the Suez Canal, on 14 April 2022. The trajectory of a surface buoy will be used to test the quality of the various current data for that day (green: correct, orange: incorrect, red: opposite direction).
However, to plan an optimal route, even for a short journey, it is essential to forecast the dynamic evolution of surface currents over a few days. This project, which has received a €360,000 grant from BPI-France, will enable us to develop and improve new AI algorithms that will be trained on long time series of satellite observations to provide reliable forecasts of surface currents over a one-week horizon.
Satellite observations, which until now have been used to describe the current state of the ocean, will now be used to predict short-term changes in the state of the sea.
