{"id":12404,"date":"2026-02-02T11:05:25","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T10:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vicorob.udg.edu\/?p=12404"},"modified":"2026-02-13T12:48:35","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T11:48:35","slug":"a-new-generation-of-intelligent-deep-sea-observatories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vicorob.udg.edu\/es\/a-new-generation-of-intelligent-deep-sea-observatories\/","title":{"rendered":"A new generation of intelligent deep-sea observatories"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Last week, the first Kick-off Meeting (KOM) of the <strong data-start=\"328\" data-end=\"380\">SMART-ME \u2013 Smart Monitoring of Marine Ecosystems<\/strong> project was held. This initiative, aims to establish a permanent and intelligent system for real-time ecological and technological monitoring in the deep Mediterranean Sea.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"617\" data-end=\"952\">The project is <strong data-start=\"632\" data-end=\"694\">coordinated by the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC)<\/strong> and focuses on <strong data-start=\"710\" data-end=\"812\">understanding and monitoring recovery processes in newly established Mediterranean marine reserves<\/strong>, addressing one of the major challenges in marine science: achieving high temporal and spatial resolution in deep-sea ecosystem monitoring.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"954\" data-end=\"1202\">ViCOROB <strong data-start=\"1002\" data-end=\"1039\">lead the SMART-ME TECH subproject<\/strong>, which focuses on <strong data-start=\"1058\" data-end=\"1168\">advancing the autonomy and capabilities of the Girona Intervention Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (I-AUVs)<\/strong>. Our research activities include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li data-start=\"1206\" data-end=\"1242\"><strong data-start=\"1206\" data-end=\"1240\">High-resolution seabed mapping<\/strong><\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1245\" data-end=\"1318\"><strong data-start=\"1245\" data-end=\"1316\">Underwater manipulation for data retrieval and lander repositioning<\/strong><\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1321\" data-end=\"1374\"><strong data-start=\"1321\" data-end=\"1374\">Autonomous detection and interaction with landers<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1376\" data-end=\"1881\">At the core of SMART-ME is the creation of <strong data-start=\"1419\" data-end=\"1433\">OBSEA-DEEP<\/strong>, one of the first distributed and intelligent deep-sea observatories in Spain. The observatory will be deployed at <strong data-start=\"1553\" data-end=\"1573\">400 metres depth<\/strong> on the upper slope of the Catalan margin, within a recently established no-take marine reserve between Blanes and Palam\u00f3s. This strategic location will enable continuous monitoring across diverse habitats, providing unprecedented insights into deep-sea ecological dynamics in protected environments.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1883\" data-end=\"2355\">Unlike traditional cabled observatories, SMART-ME relies on a <strong data-start=\"1945\" data-end=\"2004\">network of autonomous and cooperative robotic platforms<\/strong>, including <strong data-start=\"2016\" data-end=\"2112\">multiparametric landers, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), and acoustic tagging systems<\/strong>. Data transfer will be ensured through <strong data-start=\"2152\" data-end=\"2213\">pop-up buoys and a data-muling strategy enabled by I-AUVs<\/strong>, while the landers will be <strong data-start=\"2241\" data-end=\"2284\">autonomously repositioned on the seabed<\/strong>, allowing adaptive monitoring in spatially heterogeneous environments.<\/p>\n<p>By combining <strong data-start=\"2779\" data-end=\"2828\">robotics, artificial intelligence and ecology<\/strong>, SMART-ME lays the foundations for a <strong data-start=\"2866\" data-end=\"2938\">new generation of distributed and intelligent deep-sea observatories<\/strong>, contributing to <strong data-start=\"2956\" data-end=\"2989\">marine ecosystem conservation<\/strong> while reinforcing Spain\u2019s leadership in deep-sea research and technology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, the first Kick-off Meeting (KOM) of the SMART-ME \u2013 Smart Monitoring of Marine Ecosystems project was held. This initiative, aims to establish a permanent and intelligent system for real-time ecological and technological monitoring in the deep Mediterranean Sea. &nbsp; The project is coordinated by the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC) and focuses on&hellip;&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12409,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"off","neve_meta_content_width":70,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uw-robotics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vicorob.udg.edu\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vicorob.udg.edu\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vicorob.udg.edu\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vicorob.udg.edu\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vicorob.udg.edu\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12404"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/vicorob.udg.edu\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12412,"href":"https:\/\/vicorob.udg.edu\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12404\/revisions\/12412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vicorob.udg.edu\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vicorob.udg.edu\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vicorob.udg.edu\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vicorob.udg.edu\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}