The Korea Marine Environment Management Corporation (KOEM), led by President Kang Yong-seok, announced on the 30th that it had received the top prize in the AI Best Practices category at the 2026 Public Institution AI Innovation Challenge, held on the 28th and co-hosted by the Ministry of Finance and Economy and the Ministry of Science and ICT. The award recognized its project on using AI to survey and collect marine litter.
KOEM has been developing an AI-powered autonomous surface robot since 2024. Using artificial intelligence, the robot identifies the types and sizes of marine litter, navigates autonomously to detected locations using GPS, and collects the waste.
The project was particularly recognized for its contribution to addressing gaps in marine litter collection by enabling operations in areas that conventional vessels struggle to access, including beneath low-clearance bridges and in narrow waterways.
Marine floating litter has traditionally been collected using cleanup vessels and manual labor. However, these methods have faced limitations and raised safety concerns for workers operating in shallow waters and tidal flats. Deploying AI-powered autonomous robots is expected to improve worker safety while increasing cleanup efficiency in hazardous waters inaccessible to conventional vessels.
KOEM conducted field trials at Masan Port in 2025, collecting 155 metric tons of marine litter from previously underserved areas. The technology has been in active field use since this year.
KOEM plans to continue research aimed at building an AI-powered automated system that integrates marine litter monitoring drones, autonomous navigation support stations and an integrated control system. The initiative is intended to streamline surveying and collection operations while strengthening data-driven marine environmental management.
The corporation also plans to advance the technology into an intelligent AI system that links drones, surface robots and monitoring buoys to predict and track the movement of floating debris in real time. Its broader goal is to lead the transformation of marine environmental management through artificial intelligence, known as AI transformation (AX), while collecting more than 200 metric tons of marine litter annually.
KOEM President Kang Yong-seok said, “This award recognizes our field-driven innovation in addressing marine litter through AI technology.” He added, “We will continue to do our utmost to create a cleaner and healthier marine environment by leveraging advanced technologies.”
An AI-powered autonomous surface robot is an advanced unmanned marine device that combines AI-based image recognition algorithms with the Global Positioning System (GPS) to detect marine litter, navigate automatically to target locations and collect waste. An integrated control system is a centralized platform that remotely manages the operating status and collected data of distributed unmanned mobility equipment, including drones, surface robots and land-based stations, in real time.