From November 22-24, 2024, innovators across Europe came together for the EU Space for Defence and Security CASSINI Hackathon - an initiative powered by the European Union to leverage space technologies for next-generation defence and security solutions. This high-impact event challenged teams of entrepreneurs, engineers, and data scientists to create scalable applications using Copernicus satellite data and EU space infrastructure.

DroneSight: accelerating situational awareness with AI and integrated data pipelines

At Rework-Space, we believe in the transformative potential of AI, data engineering, and real-time analytics in critical infrastructure and emergency response. Implementing this vision, our team developed DroneSight - a precision intelligence platform for drone-based hazard detection and risk assessment in maritime and riverine environments.

DroneSight fuses satellite imaging (Copernicus) with drone-collected data to deliver near-real-time monitoring for enhanced safety operations. This integration is enabled through our proprietary QueryOptima data fusion engine, which ingests data from OpenEO APIs and various open-source geospatial repositories, normalizing and enriching it into actionable intelligence.

We use Sentinel-1 SAR, Sentinel-2, and drone data with the YOLOv11 model and MarinexT framework to detect ships and identify hazards like marine debris and oil spills, etc. Also, we use MyShipTracking AIS to obtain real-time ship data. After that we use our solution QueryOptima to normalize and structure the data and Blue Brain Nexus to embed it into a knowledge graph. Processed data is used for risk assessment, identification of safe routes and further visualization to assure timely and informed decision making.

Our data engineering pipeline supports:

• Multi-source ingestion and harmonization.
• Event-driven AI analytics for real-time alerting.
• Optimized cloud-native architecture for scalability.

This solution positions DroneSight as a valuable tool in supporting EU-wide emergency response efforts and environmental monitoring initiatives.

National Recognition and Strategic Impact

DroneSight was recognized at the national stage of the hackathon, earning 3rd place in Ukraine’s selection round hosted by POLE Product Design Center and local innovation partner NGO Metalab. This achievement highlights our team’s capability to rapidly prototype and deploy AI-driven geospatial solutions aligned with EU strategic priorities.

Powered by Ukraine’s Innovation Ecosystem

Our journey in the CASSINI Hackathon was made possible by Metalab, a forward-thinking urban innovation lab based in Ivano-Frankivsk. Known for catalyzing educational, social, and technological projects, Metalab provided a dynamic environment for ideation and rapid development. Their mission to foster sustainable innovation aligns perfectly with our own vision: to apply cutting-edge AI and data infrastructure to complex, real-world problems.