Observing the Ocean Over Time

Marine ecosystems change both over time and across space. Understanding these changes requires observations that go beyond one-off studies, particularly when examining seabed environments.

PLOME has explored how fixed and mobile autonomous systems can work together to support long-duration marine observation. The concept combines benthic stations, which remain on the seabed, with autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) capable of moving through the environment and collecting data.

The stations provide observations from fixed locations, while AUVs add mobility and allow the observation area to be expanded. The project has also developed and tested underwater communication and docking technologies to facilitate interaction between the different elements and support longer-duration autonomous missions.

Autonomous Observation Trials at Sea

Several of these technologies were tested under real marine conditions during PLOME’s experimental campaigns.

In 2024, the Girona 1000 AUV, developed at the University of Girona, demonstrated autonomous docking and undocking with an underwater docking station. The vehicle was able to start a mission from the station, carry it out and autonomously return to the station.

During the final sea trials in July 2025, the consortium tested different elements of the PLOME concept aboard the oceanographic research vessel Sarmiento de Gamboa, including AUVs, benthic landers and underwater communication systems.

During these trials, the Girona 1000 also carried out adaptive surveys: images were analyzed on board and, when potentially relevant features were detected, the vehicle was able to modify its trajectory. This approach allows an autonomous vehicle to adapt its mission based on information gathered during the survey.

Why Are These Advances Important?

Combining fixed and mobile autonomous systems makes it possible to collect observations at different spatial and temporal scales, which is relevant for the study of marine ecosystems.

PLOME has explored how these technologies can support long-duration and adaptive observation of marine environments, generating information that can contribute to research and ecosystem monitoring, as well as to the development of ecological indicators for the assessment of Marine Protected Areas.

PLOME on Video

Project Summary

Project: PLOME – Long-Term Platform for the Observation of Marine Ecosystems
Reference: PLEC2021-007525
Duration: December 2021 – September 2025
Coordinator: University of Girona
Partners: Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC) and IQUA Robotics.

Discover the PLOME project and its scientific results →

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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.

The event aimed to promote the ATLANTIS Testing Centre, built during the project, which will facilitate the exchange of ideas and knowledge in the field, promote collaboration and networking, as well as allow companies to test their technologies in near real conditions. The testing facilities include a fully equipped control centre, a part of a real marine industrial infrastructure to conduct experiments on and access to cranes and boats of the local sailing club.

The event was divided into three parts. Firstly, there was a welcoming session for the participants, which included a presentation of various robots from the INESCTEC team.

Secondly, there was a presentation on the current state of the DURIUS maritime infrastructure, which had been cleaned and modified to facilitate underwater manipulation experiments. The infrastructure will soon be installed again in the ATLANTIS Testing Centre.

Finally, there was a workshop about important technologies that need to be developed to perform automatised maintenance of floating wind turbines, and how far these technologies already reached from the market readiness perspective.

The UdG team was represented by Patryk Cieślak, one of the postdocs involved in developing the project. It was an important chance to inspect the state of the DURIUS, for better preparation for future experimental trials, as well as, a great networking opportunity, with interesting insights given by the wind farm operators and experts from the industry.

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Global Oceans 2020 is the event for global maritime professionals to learn, innovate and lead in the protection and utilization of the world’s largest natural resource.

Eduardo Ochoa, a doctoral student under the supervision of Dr. Rafa García, presented his paper and poster that reports the results of his research on how to detect obstacles with an omnidirectional camera mounted in a ROV and then predict the risk that each obstacle has to perform avoidance maneuvers. His research topic is Allowing untrained scientists to safely pilot ROV’s: Early collision detection and avoidance using omnidirectional vision.

Not only was the work accepted for presentation at the conference, it was also selected as one of the three finalists for the Student Poster Competition program, receiving very positive feedback from the community.

The article can be found in the conference proceedings as:

Ochoa, N.Gracias, K. Istenic, R. Garcia, J. Bosch and P. Cieslak. “Allowing untrained scientists to safely pilot ROV’s: Early collision detection and avoidance using omnidirectional vision”, Oceans Global 2020.

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From our side, we participated with our AUV Girona500, taking it to a depth of about 300 meters near the Palamós coast. The aim was to track the trajectory, identify the place where the crustacean it was supposed to be and collect the necessary data to evaluate the status of the lobster population.

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The EurofleetsPlus project will facilitate open access to an integrated and advanced research vessel fleet, designed to meet the evolving and challenging needs of the user community. European and international researchers from academia and industry will be able to apply for several access programmes, through a single-entry system. EurofleetsPlus will prioritise support for research on sustainable, clean and healthy oceans, linking with existing ocean observation infrastructures, and it will support innovation through working closely with industry. To maximise the impact of the project, EurofleetsPlus will implement diverse training and education activities, strong management of innovation in collaboration with industry, and widespread dissemination and communication actions.

The Eurofleets + team gathered in a first meeting in Galway, Ireland on the 05th-07th of March. It was focused on welcome by the Eurofleets Coordinator, on to launching of the EUROFLEETS+ project and coordinating and preparing the plan of work package together partners. On Vicorob side, the attendees were: Rafael Garcia (IP) and Mireia Frigola (Project Maneger)

A new EUROFLEETS+ website will be available soon on: http://www.eurofleets.eu

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Photos: @eurofleets and @MarineIns

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ViCOROB participated in the event with the keynote speech of Pere Ridao (PI of the underwater robotics lab) on “Underwater 3D Mapping and Intervention“, the presentations of scientific work of the MSCA Postdoctoral fellow Patryk Cieslak and the PhD student Dina Youakim and the presentation of a poster in the UdG coorganized parallel workshop on “New Horizons for Underwater Intervention Missions: From Current Technologies to Future Applications” of the Visiting Postoctoral fellow Roberto Simoni.

Also, the startup of the institute, IQUA robotics presented its developed technologies in a booth at the commercial exhibition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nubU7HQHg2Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV57sYVKKJI

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Photos: BTS organization

We attended the 10th International interdisciplinary field workshop of maritime robotics and applications – Breaking the Surface – BTS 2018. The conference was held on 30 Sep – 7 Oct, in Biograd na Moru, Croatia.

“BTS is a conference not only focused on marine robotics, but also in its applications like marine biology, marine geology, and underwater archaeology.

It was the second time I attended BTS, first time was back in 2014. Since it was the 10th year celebration we could find many pictures remembering all the different editions where we found ourselves and many people that we know from projects and other conferences. The conference is divided between mornings having different talks about the different topics, and the afternoon with workshops, hand-on, and demos of various robots and software.

Regarding our university, we had a tutorial from Nuno and Laszlo on Monday titled ‘Underwater optical image enhancement techniques‘ that had many people attending. On Tuesday we had a workshop to start to define ROS standards for underwater vehicles. More than 30 people from various universities attended and ended up in a very enriching discussion about problems and solutions we all faces developing software for underwater robots.

On Wednesday (together with IQUA robotics) there was a demo on how to work with the mission planning GUI, followed by a demo on the beach where Sparus II was commanded to do a small mission to gather and quickly plot it as a bathymetry.

We could not stay for the gala dinner and the field trip, but anyway we enjoyed the social programme of the other days where we had Norwegian party, Excellabust party (where we are partners and we brought some ‘fuet’, cookies, Catalan wines and ratafia), and the always funny Karaoke party.

“

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The two-day single-track conference program included more than twenty speakers with plenty of time for discussions and networking. Presentations from ongoing EU-funded research projects mixed with presentations from industry, policy makers and end-users. A dedicated space was provided for exhibits and demonstrations.

Patryk Cieslak presented his results on the 3D-AUV project for the first year. And Josep Quintana, former ViCOROB member, presented ROBUST project, where his current company Coronis Computing is participating.

Next year, EMRA is going to take place in Toulon (France) hosted by one of the most important research centers in Europe, IFREMER.

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