IEEE GRSS Student Grand Challenge

Fourth IEEE GRSS Student Grand Challenge 

IEEE GRSS is an international professional Society that seeks to engage students and young professionals in contributing to the solution of complex engineering problems within the scope of the Student Grand Challenges. IEEE GRSS has in the past sponsored three previous Student Grand Challenges related to remote sensing based on drones or remotely piloted aircraft systems, nanosatellites payloads, and marine plastic litter monitoring.

Important Dates

Application and Selection Process

Teams willing to participate must send a brief description of their mission concept (< 10 pages), indicating:

Team’s composition (5-10 members and an endorsing professor), background and expertise, motivation, and signed commitment letter for the whole duration of the project (see below).

Scientific rationale and feasibility of the proposed innovative techniques (i.e. “ways to conduct the observations and detect the whales”) are welcome.

Development plan, including testing, during the whole duration of the project (1.5 years), compliant with the challenge timeline shown below.

Budget proposal: Budget can be higher, but the GRSS request is limited to USD $8,000. Eligible expenses may include AWS computational resources, and purchase of one computer.

If the proposing team is not yet part of an already established GRSS Student Branch Chapter, it is important that they commit to form a new Chapter by the end of 2024.

The proposing team must commit to attending 30-minute weekly meetings in order to provide status updates and receive management and technical input from GRSS.

 A travel grant of up to USD $2,000 will be provided to one person per winning team to present their results at a special session at IGARSS 2025 in Brisbane, Australia.

Teams will be invited to submit their research work to JSTARS where their work will undergo the standard review process. Publication fees will be covered by GRSS in case of paper acceptance.

Teams are invited to submit their proposals before November 15, 2023, to: ieee.grss.4sgc@gmail.com indicating in the subject [4th GRSS Student Grand Challenge]. Proposals will be evaluated by the IEEE/GRSS SGC Steering Committee formed by Prof. A. Camps (UPC-Barcelona Tech, Spain), Prof. P. Gamba (U. Pavia, Italy), Dr. D. Kunkee (The Aerospace Corporation, USA), and Dr. T. Wang (JPL). Results will be announced on the GRSS website and by email to the participants by December 15, 2023.

Notes:

• The IGARSS travel grant and the JSTARS publication fees waiver will be in addition to the USD $8,000, but are provided only to teams that commit to the project, attend the progress meetings regularly, and perform successfully.

• All teams will retain all IP of their developments.

• Teams that may not be familiar with some of the above terms are invited to check, for example: www.smartsheet.com/content/design-review-checklist-templates

Winners in the Fourth Student Grand Challenge

1. Project title: Developing Image Processing and Image Classification Techniques for Detection and Tracking of Whales using Spaceborne Remote Sensing
Institution: Government Engineering College, Raipur(C.G), India
Endorsing professor: Dr. R. H. Talwekar

2. Project title: Enhancing Whale Tracking: Developing a Comprehensive Whale Detection Model using Satellite Imagery
Institution: University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Huairou District, Beijing, China
Endorsing professor: Prof. Guoqing Li

3. Project title: Detection and Monitoring Whales Population and Migration from VHR Satellite Images using YOLOv8 Algorithm and Satellite Images Timestamp on a Mini-Computer
Institution: Telkom University, Bandung Regency, West Java, Indonesia
Endorsing professor: Prof. Edwar, S.T., M.T.

4. Project title: Image processing and classification techniques for detection and tracking of whales using space-borne remote sensing data
Institution: Velagapudi Ramakrishna Siddhartha Engineering College, Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, India
Endorsing professor: Prof. Dr S. Vasavi

5. Project title: Monitoring humpback whales in Colombia using Satellite Imagery
Institution: Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas, Bogotá Colombia
Endorsing professor: Dr. Javier Medina and Dr. Erika Sofia Upegui Cardona

Accepted proposals will be announced in late December 2023.

Third IEEE GRSS Student Grand Challenge

The Third GRSS Student Grand Challenge targeted the detection of marine plastic litter. This challenge was conducted in collaboration with the Van Allen Foundation of the Université de Montpellier (France). Four student teams were selected from France, Spain, Portugal, and the US, using a number of different techniques from GNSS-R to hyperspectral imaging, optical radiometry and lidar fluorescence. Preliminary results were presented by one of the teams at IGARSS 2023 in Pasadena, USA.

Every year, around 338 million tons of plastic are produced globally. Much of this plastic ends up in the ocean, forming massive accumulations of plastic and microplastic particles that harm both human health and aquatic wildlife.

To combat this, the CAPTAIN project integrates satellite and in-situ measurements to identify and quantify oceanic plastic debris. Led by members of the Technical University of Catalonia and scientists at the Institute of Marine Sciences, the project has developed an instrumented Lagrangian buoy. This buoy drifts with ocean currents, monitoring plastic and fluorescent dissolved organic matter (FDOM), which signals plastic decomposition.

The buoy transmits real-time data via satellite, highlighting pollution hotspots and aiding targeted satellite remote sensing. Currently undergoing long-term testing near Barcelona, the buoy aims to refine its capabilities for future widespread use.

References

• Arii, M., Koiwa, M., Aoki, Y. Applicability of SAR to Marine Debris Surveillance After the Great East Japan Earthquake. IEEE J. Sel. Top. Appl. Earth Obs. Remote Sens. 7,
  1729–1744 (2014). doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2014.2308550
• Biermann, L., Clewley, D., Martinez-Vicente, V., Topouzelis, K. Finding Plastic Patches in Coastal Waters using Optical Satellite Data, Nat. Scientific Reports 10, 5364 (2020). doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-62298-z
• Lee, Y. K., Hong, S., Hur J., A fluorescence indicator for source discrimination between microplastic-derived dissolved organic matter and aquatic natural organic matter, Water Research, 207 (2021). doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2021.117833
• Maximenko et al. Toward the Integrated Marine Debris Observing System, Front. Mar. Sci., 6, (2019). doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2019.00447
• Romera-Castillo, C., Pinto, M., Langer, T. M., Álvarez-Salgado X. A., Herndl G. J.,
  Dissolved organic carbon leaching from plastics stimulates microbial activity in the
  ocean. Nat Commun 9, 1430 (2018). doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03798-5
• Topouzelis, K., Papageorgiou, D., Karagaitanakis, A., Papakonstantinou, A., Arias Ballesteros, M., Remote Sensing of Sea Surface Artificial Floating Plastic Targets with Sentinel-2 and Unmanned Aerial Systems (Plastic Litter Project 2019). Remote Sens. 2020, 12, (2013).

Second IEEE GRSS Student Grand Challenge

The Second GRSS Student Grand Challenge aimed at developing Earth Observation payloads for nanosatellites. This challenge was conducted in collaboration with the National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC), Al Ain, United Arab Emirates (UAE). Three student teams were selected from Spain, Indonesia, and Japan. These payloads included an L-band microwave radiometer, a hyperspectral camera, an IoT communications system, and an RGB camera with an AI system to discard images covered by clouds. The 3-unit CubeSat and the 3 payloads developed were presented at IGARSS 2023 in Pasadena, USA. The current status of the satellite is in the final integration phase. The launch is planned for October 2024 on a Falcon-9 rocket. The mission includes payloads built by student teams from three international universities:

1. 

   Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain, is developing an L-band radiometer for monitoring ice thickness and soil moisture, a hyperspectral camera for monitoring vegetation, and a software-defined radio for monitoring Radio Frequency Interference.

2. Telkom University, Indonesia, is developing a multispectral camera and a miniature spectrometer for atmospheric sensing.

3. Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan, is developing algorithms for onboard image classification to automatically detect the best quality images for downlinking.

Image 1 – AlainSat-1 team during the integration from left to right: Prof. Abdul-Hallim Jallad, Mr. Abdullah AlSalmani, Mr. Edwar (LOCANA team), Ms. Teana Mohamed, Mr. Adrián Pérez (RITA team), Dr. Yasir Abbas (ICU team), Mr. Mukesh Jha, Mr. Guillem Gràcia (RITA team), Mr. Amadeu Gonga (RITA team), and Mr. Hassan Al -Ali.

Image 2 – AlainSat-1 during the integration of the flight model.

First IEEE GRSS Student Grand Challenges

The First GRSS Student Grand Challenge focused on the development of end-to-end remote sensing applications based on drones or remotely piloted aircraft systems. Five student teams were selected. Projects included a surveillance system for forest fire detection, a precision agriculture and forest monitoring system, a rice farm mapping system, a system to detect and geolocate disaster survivors, and a system to monitor glaciers. These projects were invited to present their results at IGARSS 2019 in Yokohama, Japan, in a dedicated session:

www.igarss2019.org/Papers/PublicSessionIndex3.asp?Sessionid=1375.

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The Second GRSS Student Grand Challenge aimed at developing Earth Observation payloads for nanosatellites. This challenge was conducted in collaboration with the National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC), Al Ain, United Arab Emirates (UAE). Three student teams were selected from Spain, Indonesia, and Japan. These payloads included an L-band microwave radiometer, a hyperspectral camera, an IoT communications system, an RGB camera with an AI system to discard images covered by clouds. The satellite launch is now scheduled for the second half of 2024. The 3-unit CubeSat and the 3 payloads developed were presented at IGARSS 2023 in Pasadena, USA:

2023.ieeeigarss.org/view_session.php?SessionID=1464 2023.ieeeigarss.org/view_session.php?SessionID=1465

The Third GRSS Student Grand Challenge targeted the detection of marine plastic litter. This challenge was conducted in collaboration with the Van Allen Foundation of the Université de Montpellier (France). Four student teams were selected from France, Spain, Portugal, and the US, using a number of different techniques from GNSS-R to hyperspectral imaging, optical radiometry and lidar fluorescence. Preliminary results were presented by one of the teams at IGARSS 2023 in Pasadena, USA:

2023.ieeeigarss.org/view_paper.php?PaperNum=2041

Questions and more information

If you have any questions about the IEEE GRSS Student Grand Challenges, please email ieee.grss.4sgc@gmail.com.

Submissions will only be accepted by email via ieee.grss.4sgc@gmail.com.