Mapping

The future of coral reef monitoring

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B18 Fellowship Hall

Featured Sessions
Abstract Saudi Arabia is undertaking an unprecedented development along its Red Sea coast, including launching multiple "GigaProjects", with ambitions to be a major ecotourism destination. At the same time, the country has committed to the highest levels of protection for the natural environment and 'regenerative tourism' approaches that will improve the quality of the targeted habitats. Of particular focus are the Kingdom's numerous coral reefs, renowned for their biodiversity. Traditional approaches for monitoring the health of coral reefs are difficult to scale up sufficiently to meet the

Autonomous marine mapping, current situation and future possibilities

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B18 Fellowship Hall

Featured Sessions
Abstract In the last decade marine robotics and autonomous research has started to grow in the Red Sea, led by KAUST researchers, marine startup companies and now with the various new Giga Projects. In the early days this work often had a heavy human component for the launch, recovery and control. New emerging technologies for remotely telemetry are helping to solve this, as are combined autonomous survey solutions. Using multiple autonomous systems, on the sea surface, underwater and airborne in a single survey campaign is proving to be extremely efficient with significantly more data being

Deep benthic environments: an endless (but stimulating) challenge for marine robotics

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B18 Fellowship Hall

Featured Sessions
Abstract In the past 50 years, marine robotics had a huge impact on marine sciences, providing countless support tools for a better understanding of the benthic environments. The endless need for a higher level of resolution in our maps, the application of specific protocols for monitoring programs, measuring the different components of the water column, and collecting the smallest or most delicate biological samples have pushed the technology always over its limits. Finally, the introduction of AI in acoustic and underwater video technologies is bringing now the analyses to a higher level of

Semi-autonomous systems enable advances in Earth Observation

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B18 Fellowship Hall

Featured Sessions
Abstract The description and characterization of the Earth system is a field that routinely leverages technological advances to improve our understanding of diverse ecosystems. One of the most promising areas of application is the use of autonomous and semi-autonomous platforms in precision agriculture. Such systems are capable of performing data collection, analysis, and decision-making tasks with minimal human intervention. The Hydrology, Agriculture, and Land Observation (HALO) laboratory at KAUST is at the forefront of this technology, employing a combination of satellites, UAVs and most