Low altitude remote-sensing method to monitor marine and beach litter of various colors using a balloon equipped with a digital camera

This study aims to establish a low-altitude remote sensing system for surveying litter on a beach or the ocean using a remote-controlled digital camera suspended from a balloon filled with helium gas. The resultant images are processed to identify the litter using projective transformation method and color difference in the CIELUV color space. Low-altitude remote sensing experimental observations were conducted on two locations in Japan. Although the sizes of the litter and the areas covered are distorted in the original photographs taken at various angles and heights, the proposed image process system is capable of identifying object positions with a high degree of accuracy (1–3 m). Furthermore, the color difference approach in the CIELUV color space used in this study is well capable of extracting pixels of litter objects of various colors allowing us to estimate the number of objects from the photographs.