Marine Robotics

Developing Marine Robotics for the Western Indian Ocean - Needs, designs and applications

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B18 Fellowship Hall

Featured Sessions
Abstract The Western Indian Ocean (WIO) is one of the fastest warming parts of the global ocean. There is no doubt that this is due to Climate Change. Model projections indicate Sea Surface Temperature (SST) in the tropical WIO will rise some 5°C by 2100 with drastic destructive changes in the marine ecosystems and fisheries, impacting food security for the 60 M people who are dependent on this ocean. Inland droughts will accentuate this problem. By 2035 emergency food relief will be need in Mozambique, Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar, Comoros, and Somalia (already happening). Emergency mitigation

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

Underwater Robot for Shallow Water Pipeline Inspection & Monitoring

Hassane Trigui, Research & Development Center, Aramco

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B18 Fellowship Hall

Featured Sessions
Abstract Remotely operated Vehicles (ROVs) are widely used in deep water to perform various types of activities in the Oil and Gas sector and beyond. However, for extreme shallow waters, that is less than 10 meters in depth, the ROV market is severely underserved. In addition, ROV operations in shallow waters are more challenging than deeper waters due to the difficulty in accessing shallow sites with large vessels that can support divers and ROVs in their operations. Robotics Engineers from Aramco have developed a unique underwater robot specifically designed to operate in shallow waters area

Neuromorphic Computing Architectures for Robot Vision in Marine Harsh Environments

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B18 Fellowship Hall

Featured Sessions
Abstract The design of robots that interact autonomously with the environment and exhibit complex behaviors is an open challenge that can benefit from understanding what makes living beings fit to act in the world. Neuromorphic engineering studies neural computational principles to develop technologies that can provide a computing substrate for building compact and low-power processing systems. In this talk shows why the robots with neuromorphic technologies - from perception to motor control - represents a promising approach for the creation of robots which can be more intelligent and

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

Frontiers in Marine Research Robotics

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B18 Fellowship Hall

Featured Sessions
Abstract Marine robotics have evolved substantially since the early days of autonomous underwater vehicles which meant a multimillion-dollar vehicle always accompanied by a surface vehicle. An early step forward in scientific vehicles was the development of the buoyancy-driven autonomous underwater vehicles which could stay at sea for months and traverse large distances and depths down to 1000m, albeit slowly. Critical needs exist for vehicles that can map, image and characterize the sea bottom, and for intelligent fleet management schemes. The mesophotic (below diver accessible depths) and

KAUST Reefscape Restoration Initiative

Dr. Maram Abadi, KAUST Reefscape Restoration Initiative, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)

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B18 Fellowship Hall

Featured Sessions
Abstract KAUST Reefscape Restoration Initiative is the world's largest coral reef restoration initiative. The initiative will begin with a 100-hectare reef restoration project at Shushah Island in the Red Sea. This will be a global demonstration of coral restoration that integrates innovative, in-Saudi Arabia, and internationally developed technologies, pioneering propagation, planting, and monitoring approaches, and international expertise to accelerate solutions for reef ecosystems at a time of unprecedented environmental change. The effort will be a mix of coral conservation protection

From ROV's to Smart Reefs: CMR's Journey supporting Marine Research

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B18 Fellowship Hall

Featured Sessions
Abstract This presentation explores the contributions, future capabilities, and advocacy of the KAUST CMR Core Lab in supporting marine research activities in the Red Sea since 2008 and into the future. The CMR team has employed a variety of technologies to collect data and samples from the seabed and water column using various tools and robots. The use of ROVs has enabled the collection of deep-sea corals, exploration of hydrothermal areas, and observation of brine pools. AUVs and USVs, such as the Seaglider, Ocean Aero's Triton, and the Otter from Maritime Robotics, have been utilized for

At the Limits of the Red Sea - challenges of deep marine sciences

Prof. Froukje M. van der Zwan, Physical Science and Engineering, Earth Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology

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B18 Fellowship Hall

Featured Sessions
Abstract The Red Sea is a unique marine environment where we can study the formation of a new ocean basin, which is host to rare ecosystems due to its young and enclosed character and special environmental conditions. The deep Red Sea Rift is particularly interesting as the new oceanic crust is formed by volcanic activity along the entire basin, which, together with hydrothermal activity and the occurrence of brine pools, provides unique habitats. The Red Sea Rift is >1,000 m deep, far past the limits of scuba diving, and reaches almost 3,000 m in some areas. Salinity is >40 PSU, and the

Exploring the Blue Frontier with Cooperative Marine Robots

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B18 Fellowship Hall

Featured Sessions
Abstract The last decade has witnessed tremendous progress in the development of marine technologies that are steadily affording scientists advanced equipment and methods for ocean exploration and exploitation. Recent advances in marine robotics, sensors, computers, communications, and information systems are being applied to the development of sophisticated technologies that will lead to safer, faster, and far more efficient ways of exploring the ocean frontier, especially in hazardous conditions. As part of this trend, there has been a surge of interest worldwide in the development of

Harnessing the potential for robotics and automation for restoring the worlds coral reefs

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B18 Fellowship Hall

Featured Sessions
Abstract Restoration of Earth's ecosystems has accelerated as a critical management tool in the past decade, particularly for coral reefs where stakeholders have adopted restoration to offset continued declines in reef health. Most coral reef restoration programs remain locally targeted and sub-hectare, where scalability is generated through people networks. Of the few programs that are now beginning to operate at the largest multi-hectare scales - including the KAUST Reefscape Restoration Initiative (KRRI) - implementation of innovative robotics and automation is seen as key to deliver more

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

Robotic Customized Medicine for Corals

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B18 Fellowship Hall

Featured Sessions
Abstract Most microbiomes of marine ecosystems and marine organisms are being impacted by anthropogenic action and can no longer be considered pristine. These microbiomes are usually enriched with pathogens, especially in areas in need of restoration, and constitute one of the key points to be considered for conservation purposes. Here, I will show how corals respond to the probiotic application in field trials, the robotic improvements we have been testing for the automated inoculation, and whether non-target hosts (e.g., sponges, fish, and algae) can also be affected by such microbial

Robotics and Automation in Coral Monitoring and Restoration

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B18 Fellowship Hall

Featured Sessions
Abstract Monitoring and preservation of coral reefs are critical for marine biology research, economic development, and environmental protection. Given that long-term survey of marine environments and restoring bleached coral reefs are extremely labor-intensive, autonomous robots are emerging as one of the key solutions to address such challenge. In this talk, we present on-going projects at KAUST Robotics group in conceiving autonomous underwater robots for swift and safe navigation in complex environments to collect high-resolution coral images. We also discuss challenges and opportunities

Estimation and control of underwater optical wireless communication systems

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B18 Fellowship Hall

Featured Sessions
Abstract Underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC) technologies are essential for the growth of future underwater communication applications. As the demand for capacity increases, UOWC is considered an emerging alternative technology in the underwater communication area. However, maintaining a controlled line-of-sight link between transmitter and receiver is a significant challenge because the alignment angle required for trajectory tracking control is not directly measured and has to be estimated. In this talk, I will present our recent works on estimating the alignment angle between

The need for robotics and automatization to meet our global coral restoration goals

Dr. Sebastian Schmidt-Roach, BESE/Red Sea Research Center, KAUST

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B18 Fellowship Hall

Featured Sessions
Abstract Coral reefs are vital to a vast number of human livelihoods depending on them for fisheries, tourism and coastal protection. Facing dramatic global declines in coral cover and reef habitat degradation due to climate change and other anthropogenic impacts, coral reef restoration has become imperative to maintain their ecosystem services. In the Kunming-Montreal biodiversity framework the international community set ambitious goals, such as restoring, or being on the way to restore, 30% of degraded habitats by 2030. However, meeting these goals is currently constrained by the high