Seafloor and human-made underwater structures inspection is a fundamental task during the implantation of marine and oceanic infrastructures, the maintenance of existing facilities, as well as during their dismantling, in case of key sectors such as: renewable energy, petroleum and gas, underwater wires (telecommunications and energy), underwater lines (feedback systems and desalinization and depuration plants wasting), aquaculture, dredging, merchant navy, archeology, geology and biology, among others.
In that sense, it becomes essential developing new technologies increasing the quality and reducing the costs of the infrastructure and their related services, given that those directly affect the economic growth. At the same time, the new technologies should enhance the sustainable development, allowing a rich economic growth for the society.
Under these assumptions appear the PICMAR project (Intelligent Platform for the Characterization of the Seafloor and Underwater Infrastructure / Plataforma Inteligente para la Caracterización de Fondos Marinos e Infraestructuras Submarinas), as a result of the collaboration between TecnoAmbiente and the University of Girona. PICMAR is intended to overcome the existing limitations concerning the inspection and management of the seafloor and the underwater infrastructures, as well as to promote the growth of the related sectors, and with special attention the wind energy (offshore).
In the framework of PICMAR, the whole data processing pipeline is treated. The project improves the state of the art in topics such as multimodal data registration and 2D / 3D data blending, and goes beyond in others such as automatic data classification, using multimodal information, and change detection.
