On March 3, 2026 at 9 am PT (noon ET), The Ocean Cleanup’s Robin de Vries, ADIS (Autonomous Debris Imaging System) Lead, will present the free hour webinar “Cleaning the Oceans with Edge AI: The Ocean Cleanup’s Smart Camera Transformation,” organized by the Edge AI and Vision Alliance. Here’s the description, from the event registration page:
The Ocean Cleanup is on a mission to rid the world’s oceans of plastic. To do that, the team needs to know where plastic accumulates, how it moves, and how their cleanup systems behave in tough, remote marine environments. In this webinar, you’ll learn how they have developed and used their Autonomous Debris Imaging System (ADIS), using edge AI and computer vision to turn raw images of the ocean into useful information—right where the data is captured.
The session begins with their original monitoring setup, built with off‑the‑shelf GoPro cameras and removable hard drives. That first‑generation system validated ideas but exposed pain points: manual data collection, huge amounts of unstructured video, unreliable operation at sea and an approach that was hard to scale.
From there, Robin de Vries (The Ocean Cleanup) will walk through the second‑generation solution: a customized smart camera platform that runs computer vision models on the device. You’ll learn how the team designed a system that can handle marine conditions, work with limited connectivity and track plastic and system behavior in real time. Robin will also share challenges—hardware choices, power and thermal limits, model deployment and remote management—and the tradeoffs and lessons learned in moving from GoPros to production‑ready smart cameras.
You’ll hear about the results they’re seeing, how ADIS is changing daily operations and what’s on their roadmap.
This webinar features Robin de Vries, ADIS (Autonomous Debris Imaging System) Lead at The Ocean Cleanup. From his background in Aerospace Engineering, Geoscience, and Remote Sensing, Robin helps design and build the edge‑based monitoring systems that support large‑scale plastic cleanup. He works across hardware, software, and data to turn operational needs into embedded solutions that can run for long periods in demanding conditions and has been closely involved in the shift from GoPros to today’s smart camera platforms.
To register for this free webinar, please see the event page. For more information, please email [email protected].
