Microplastic-sensing Drone

As a not-for-profit engineering innovation company, Draper provides unbiased assessments of technology or systems designed or recommended by other organizations — whether custom-designed or commercial-off-the-shelf.

Microplastics in the ocean’s waterways are an ever-growing invisible threat, one that is increasingly becoming part of our everyday lives. This led them to team up with the EPA to combat one of the biggest problems in the world: microplastic contamination. 

The Mircoplastics-Sensing Autonomous Underwater Vehicle is the first-in-class for microplastic sensing drones. Draper’s AUV can detect and analyze invisible microplastics, and enable scientists to understand where they are originating from, where they are most prominent and how to prevent them from contaminating our waters. When the AUV is deployed, it skims the top nine meters of the water where most microplastics are located, scanning for microplastics, testing for specific types, and ultimately relaying GPS coordinates into a heat map.

They did this by creating the world’s first real-time microplastic-sensing system in the form of a full-size autonomous underwater drone. The drone will search, find, and analyze this invisible threat to the world’s oceans, coastal regions, and rivers. This will also enable scientists to understand where microplastics originate from and how to prevent them from contaminating our waters.

Draper hopes to launch a Plastic Particle Pollution Index posting measurements and trend predictions of microplastic particle concentrations in the world’s oceans, coastal regions and rivers. Draper also plans to make its microplastic sensing technology widely available via open-sourcing so other can contribute to the ppp index.

The project is also part of larger long-term strategic design initiative to develop an iconic visual brand language across Draper’s different divisions and product categories.