The project aims to develop new machine learning approaches for the Girona1000 AUV, that integrates side-scan sonar with a dual-camera optical system, to enhance underwater mapping and blue carbon inventory, providing valuable information for environmental monitoring and conservation efforts. By generating and analysing side-scan sonar maps in real time, the robot can interpret the underwater environment as it explores the seafloor and autonomously adapt its mission based on the information it acquires, improving the efficiency and quality of underwater inspection and mapping operations.

The work was presented by Dr. Nuno Gracias, together with PhD candidates Hayat Rajani and Valerio Franchi from CIRS. The poster introduce the first underwater stereo event-camera setup developed within the project. The system uses an AMD Kria KV260 to preprocess the large volume of event data before feeding it to a SpiNNode neuromorphic board, built around the SpiNNaker2 chip, which runs spiking neural networks for classification. The high temporal resolution and high dynamic range of event cameras cope with the rapid motion and uneven illumination underwater, while their low power consumption supports the long survey missions that broad blue carbon inventory requires.

Valerio and Hayat also took the opportunity to present ongoing work from two other projects. One of the posters introduced a multi-robot system for total body photography at dermatoscopic image quality, a line of research begun under the iToBoS project and continued since its conclusion. The work-in-progress framework uses four UR10 manipulators with end-effector cameras, combining view planning and multi-robot scheduling with a real-time mole tracker in a visual servoing loop, allowing it to adapt to individual patient anatomies and capture consistent high-resolution images while reducing examination time and operator dependency. The other poster reported preliminary results from the ongoing tech transfer project OculaRobot an autonomous framework for precision intravitreal injection, one of the highest-volume medical procedures worldwide. The system pairs a 6-DOF collaborative manipulator with a trifocal stereoscopic vision rig for real-time 3D tracking of the eye and needle, using visual servoing and force feedback to target sub-millimetre positioning accuracy. Both posters were presented at the well-regarded workshop on robot-assisted medical imaging, RAMI .

Additionally, Hayat presented a poster from the work carried out at Heriot-Watt University, introducing a controlled benchmark designed to systematically evaluate modern 3D reconstruction methods under variations in medium and lighting. The benchmark comprises 13 datasets spanning two media (air and water) and three lighting conditions (ambient, artificial, and mixed), with additional variations in motion type, scanning pattern, and initialization trajectory, resulting in a diverse set of sequences.

Funded by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) and the NextGenerationEU programme, the IURBI project is now entering its final stage. The technologies developed within the project contribute to the advancement of more intelligent and autonomous underwater robotic systems, with potential applications in marine exploration, environmental monitoring and the conservation of marine ecosystems, reinforcing the role of technological innovation in addressing scientific and societal challenges.

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The project is coordinated by the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC) and focuses on understanding and monitoring recovery processes in newly established Mediterranean marine reserves, addressing one of the major challenges in marine science: achieving high temporal and spatial resolution in deep-sea ecosystem monitoring.

ViCOROB lead the SMART-ME TECH subproject, which focuses on advancing the autonomy and capabilities of the Girona Intervention Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (I-AUVs). Our research activities include:

• High-resolution seabed mapping
• Underwater manipulation for data retrieval and lander repositioning
• Autonomous detection and interaction with landers

At the core of SMART-ME is the creation of OBSEA-DEEP, one of the first distributed and intelligent deep-sea observatories in Spain. The observatory will be deployed at 400 metres depth on the upper slope of the Catalan margin, within a recently established no-take marine reserve between Blanes and Palamós. This strategic location will enable continuous monitoring across diverse habitats, providing unprecedented insights into deep-sea ecological dynamics in protected environments.

Unlike traditional cabled observatories, SMART-ME relies on a network of autonomous and cooperative robotic platforms, including multiparametric landers, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), and acoustic tagging systems. Data transfer will be ensured through pop-up buoys and a data-muling strategy enabled by I-AUVs, while the landers will be autonomously repositioned on the seabed, allowing adaptive monitoring in spatially heterogeneous environments.

By combining robotics, artificial intelligence and ecology, SMART-ME lays the foundations for a new generation of distributed and intelligent deep-sea observatories, contributing to marine ecosystem conservation while reinforcing Spain’s leadership in deep-sea research and technology.

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AI4SEA combines AI-based planning, machine learning and robotic manipulation to advance the development of autonomous underwater technologies under real-world marine conditions.

ViCOROB leads the AI4AUV subproject, Artificial Intelligence for AUV-based underwater habitat restoration, focused on developing a dual-arm Intervention Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) with embedded AI. This system will enable autonomous perception, decision-making and manipulation, integrating deep learning, reinforcement learning and edge computing techniques to allow the robot to operate independently in complex underwater environments.

AI4SEA is a multidisciplinary research project aimed at the autonomous mapping, monitoring and restoration of underwater habitats, with Posidonia oceanica meadows as the main use case. The project seeks to deliver intelligent and scalable solutions that contribute to the sustainable management of marine ecosystems.

The project consortium includes:

• ViCOROB – University of Girona, leading AI4AUV
• University of the Balearic Islands (UIB), with AI4MAP – Embedded AI for underwater habitat Mapping
• Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), with AI4MON – Embedded AI for continuous MONitoring of underwater habitats, through the OBSEA Observatory
• Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC), with AI4ECO – Scientific validation of the AI-driven methodology for Marine habitat Assessment and Restoration

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Amb els seus gairebé 12 metres d’eslora, la nova embarcació amplia les possibilitats d’experimentació. La configuració de l’embarcació permet treballar amb seguretat amb diversos submarins alhora i disposa d’una motorització híbrida que, en condicions favorables del mar, permet treballar sense generació d’emissions contaminants.

Aquest vaixell no només és una eina tecnològica, sinó també un pont que connecta disciplines i institucions. Gràcies al suport del Ministeri de Ciència i Innovació i els fons NextGenerationEU, hem pogut fer realitat una infraestructura que estarà al servei de tota la comunitat científica, des de la monitorització ambiental fins a la biologia marina.

El SEXTANT II és molt més que un vaixell: és una porta oberta al futur de la ciència marina.

L’impacte del SEXTANT II també s’ha fet sentir als mitjans de comunicació:

https://www.diaridegirona.cat/baix-emporda/2024/11/27/udg-estrena-nova-embarcacio-per-112106028.html

https://www.elpuntavui.cat/societat/article/15-ciencia/2482994-la-udg-estrena-el-vaixell-sextant-ii-per-a-recerca-en-robotica-submarina.html

https://www.gerio.cat/noticia/1693768/la-udg-estrena-una-nova-embarcacio-per-experimentar-amb-robots-en-el-mar

https://www.emporda.info/girona/2024/11/27/udg-estrena-nova-embarcacio-per-experimentar-robots-mar-emporda-112100916.html

https://www.radiocapital.cat/la-udg-estrena-a-sant-feliu-de-guixols-una-nova-embarcacio-per-experimentar-amb-robots-en-el-mar/

https://www.tvcostabrava.com/joan-parareda/economia/tecnologia/la-udg-fa-un-pas-mes-en-la-investigacio-robotica-submarina

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The post PLOME Project: Testing Autonomous Docking for Long-Term Underwater AUV Deployments appeared first on Vicorob.

For the main tests one of the optical modems was placed in the GIRONA500 AUV, and the other one was placed in a Docking Station, which we just designed and developed at the lab, and is also being tested for long term underwater operations for the GIRONA AUV models, this related to the PLOME project. Between the tests performed we wanted to characterize variables such as maximum communications distance range, working field of view, operations under different water conditions given the environment light and depth, data transmission capabilities, among others.

These type of tests enable us to properly shape upcoming proposals that look forward the future of underwater robotics, a future where ROVs can work over wireless communication networks with better data size and rate transmission of what we have today, which is useful for both oceanographic research and for IMR (inspection, maintenance and repair) tasks.

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A scientific team led by the University of Girona (UdG) will develop an underwater platform to intelligently monitor marine ecosystems in real time. The project is called “Platform for Long-lasting Observation of Marine Ecosystems” (PLOME) and is carried out jointly with the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya · BarcelonaTech (UPC), the Universitat de les Illes Balears (UIB), the Universitat Politècnica de Madrid (UPM), the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC) and the company Iqua Robotics SL.

The project has a budget of 1.5 million euros from funds from the Spanish Research Agency and the European funds Next Generation. Over the course of three years, PLOME will design a non-invasive, modular platform to collect essential data so that the scientific community can better monitor, supervise and manage marine ecosystems.

Specifically, the project proposes to develop a set of independent systems consisting of fixed stations that remain on the seabed, submarine vehicles and surface vehicles that work together and autonomously to collect data. All systems have batteries and communication systems. Underwater vehicles can be parked to charge batteries and surface vehicles can work by extracting energy from the environment.

The set of systems constitutes a platform that can monitor an area for several weeks, and up to a month, without the need for human intervention. Once collected, the systems are maintained, data is extracted, batteries are charged, and the platform can be deployed again so that monitoring can continue in another area.

The project aims to advance the current methodology in which, for the most part, data is only extracted while there is a human team conducting an oceanographic campaign. The PLOME platform allows monitoring for a long period, with real-time communications that facilitate the monitoring of the ecosystem.

Since the systems are working for many days, artificial intelligence is used to detect species and adapt and optimize seabed monitoring according to the detections. Researchers will also receive a summary of the detections in real time, so they can understand what is happening and be able to change the parameters they want to make better use of the rest of the days when the platform will still be collecting information.

During the three years of the project, three experiments will be carried out in different places on the Catalan coast. The first will take place in 2023 on the coast of Sant Feliu de Guíxols. It will be the first time that the technologies developed will work together to obtain data from the seabed. During 2024, two final experiments of the project will be carried out. The first will consist of a deep validation, between 300 and 500 meters, in a protected area of real fishing near the city of Barcelona, by means of an oceanographic boat. In this experiment the monitoring systems will be validated in real conditions for several days, supervising and operating the systems from the ship.

The second experiment will be carried out on the coast of Vilanova i la Geltrú, and will consist of validating all the systems at shallow depth over a week without interruption. The platform will be connected to the OBSEA marine observatory, and this will allow real-time monitoring of all systems to verify that they are working properly.

“With PLOME we want to consolidate the use of autonomous submarine vehicles as a tool for observing the seabed that does not require a whole human team and an infrastructure dedicated to the time it is used,” explains the researcher of the research group in Computer Vision and Robotics (VICOROB) at the UdG and project coordinator, Marc Carreras. According to him, “autonomous vehicles allow work to be done for one or more days, analyzing and making decisions so that the data acquired is valuable“.

“It is one of the technologies needed to properly manage marine ecosystems as this autonomy allows the operation of vehicles to be scalable,” adds the VICOROB researcher. This group has extensive experience in national and international research projects related to autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), including the development of the AUVs Girona 500/1000 and Sparus II, used by different international research groups. In addition to leading the project, VICOROB will be responsible for adapting the autonomous underwater vehicles for experimental validation.

For its part, the ICM is the partner responsible for calculating ecological indicators as a synthetic metric for the health and recovery of marine ecosystems. “From the information obtained through the automatic processing of images from robotic platforms, we will proceed to calculate the abundance of species and global biodiversity,” says ICM researcher Jacopo Aguzzi.

The Centre de Desenvolupament de Sistemes d’Adquisició Remota i Tractament de la Informació (SARTI-UPC) will contribute to the design of fixed seabed observation stations. Thanks to the experience acquired after more than 10 years since the deployment of the observatory marí OBSEA, the SARTI group deals with the design of landers, stations that will host instrumentation such as cameras and sensors, devices for communication with the surface and the recovery elements of the platforms. “The landers allow the measurement of different marine parameters at a fixed point and will link the communications of the entire platform with surface“, specifies the UPC researcher, Joaquín del Río.

The most relevant contribution of the UIB in this project is the generation and implementation of artificial intelligence algorithms for the analysis of images obtained by the cameras on board the platforms, both in autonomous vehicles and in the fixed stations. The aim is the detection, identification, cutting and quantification of different marine species.

UPM will focus on the management of acoustic submarine communications and satellite and / or GSM communications. For this reason, a Middleware will be developed to facilitate the use of communication devices between all the actors involved in the project (vehicles, stations, ships, control station, etc.). The Middleware it allows to treat all the devices of communications of the same way, contributing a layer of communications of high level that simplifies the use of the same, without being necessary to have a deep knowledge by the user. The works will be developed by the Research Group in Applied Instrumentation and Acoustics (I2A2) of the UPM.

Finally, the company located in Girona IQUA Robotics will develop mapping algorithms based on data acquired with lasers, camcorders and acoustic cameras. Created in 2016, IQUA Robotics is dedicated to the design, development and marketing of autonomous underwater vehicles and other related technologies. It is the only private company in the consortium.

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The event is the meeting point for businesses and academics of marine robotic technology. OI22 is a must-attend event for those involved in exploring, monitoring, developing or protecting the world’s oceans, from seabed to surface and beyond. The last developments are presented in the exhibition. The BITER project will make use of some of them to monitor the seabed habitats, and to demonstrate that AUVs can be an important tool for marine protected area protection.

In the coordinated project BITER, the collaboration among highly multidisciplinary research teams intends to evaluate the usefulness of a network of no-take marine reserves to recover commercially-important demersal fishery stocks and habitats.

The results should allow the establishment of the numerical basis and methods for using marine reserves as a tool for the recovery of fisheries resources and also for the implementation of protocols to monitor the ecological status of a network of deep Marine Reserves.

more information about BITER project

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Jacobs researchers are working on a fault detection system for Sparus II AUV as well as different ways to run remote experiments. Since starting in November we have been designing and testing the algorithms to simulate thruster failures by applying a percentage of the force requested to specific thrusters and designing the experiments where they will detect the faults. Initial testing of all code has been done remotely in the water tank of CIRS while also testing different SSH/VPN solutions to execute code remotely.

On Friday 5th of February the VICOROB team moved to Sant Feliu de Guixols’ harbor to run extensive tests, with and without different failures and at different velocities and trajectories, to collect enough data for Jacob’s researchers to develop the fault detection algorithm.

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The underwater inspection, maintenance and repair operations are becoming the main focus of the research in underwater robotics. Due to the desire of using small, autonomous vehicles instead of heavy work-class remotely operated vehicles, these tasks need a new definition and approach, to overcome the limits of the robots, such and limited manipulation force/torque capabilities (small electric manipulators). One of the tasks in which these two limits are especially important is object transportation. Transporting a heavy or long object is particularly difficult with a single I-AUV.

TWINBOT project aims to achieve a step forward in the underwater intervention state of the art by introducing multiple vehicle operations. Experiments are now taking place in the CIRS facilities, within Girona1000 subproject, using two Girona500 I-AUVs equipped with electric manipulators, one owned by the University of Girona (UdG) and the other owned by the University Jaume I (UJI), which is the partner in the project. The goal of the mission is to perform a fully autonomous sequence of pick, transport and place operations on a 2 meters long pipe.

The scientific and technological results of this project will permit achieving a unique twin I-AUV system to allow us to study promising research lines in a nearly unexplored research field in the underwater domain.

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