News

15 September
In AUV, Dissemination, GIRONA 500, News, Projects, SPARUS II by cirs-media

FP7 European Project MORPH: next generation of underwater robotics for ocean exploration tested in the Azores

From 8 to 18 September 2014, the Center of IMAR of the University of the Azores is hosting the sea trials of a new type of robotics-based distributed sensor system, aimed at affording marine scientists and commercial operators a revolutionary tool for marine habitat mapping in complex 3D environments. The tests are being performed in the scope of the EC research project MORPH, entitled Marine Robotic System of Self-Organising, Logically Linked Physical Nodes.   Launched in February 2012, the 4-year research project MORPH is partly funded by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme with a budget of 8,5 million Euros….

14 July
R2B2
In CIRS, Dissemination, News by cirs-media

2a edició del campus PRESUB – robòtica submarina educativa

Del 7 al 11 de juliol va tenir lloc la segona edició del Campus PRESUB a les instal•lacions del Centre de Robòtica Submarina (Parc Científic i Tecnològic), amb la participació d’ una vintena d’estudiants de secundària de diferents centres de les comarques gironines. L’objectiu bàsic d’aquests tallers és la realització d’activitats científico-tecnològiques de caire lúdic que resultin interessants i atractives que permetin incrementar el interès de la societat, i més concretament dels estudiants de secundària, per la tecnologia i que fomentin els valors propis de l’enginyeria. Aquest objectiu és compartit pel Departament d’Arquitectura i Tecnologia de Computadors, pel Consell Social…

09 June
euROBOTICS
In AUV, CIRS, GIRONA 500, News, Projects, SPARUS II by cirs-media

EU launches world’s largest civilian robotics programme – 240,000 new jobs expected

The European Commission and 180 companies and research organisations (under the umbrella of euRobotics) today launch the world’s largest civilian research and innovation programme in robotics. Covering manufacturing, agriculture, health, transport, civil security and households, the initiative – called SPARC – is the EU’s industrial policy effort to strengthen Europe’s position in the global robotics market (€60 billion a year by 2020). This initiative is expected to create over 240,000 jobs in Europe, and increase Europe’s share of the global market to 42% (a boost of €4 billion per year). The European Commission will invest €700 million and euRobotics €2.1…

02 June
3D mapping
In News, THESIS, Underwater Mapping by cirs-media

Ricard Campos defends his PhD thesis “Surface Reconstruction Methods for Seafloor Modelling”

Underwater maps are an important source of information for the scientific community, since mapping the seafloor is the starting point for underwater exploration. The advance of range scanning methodologies, both using acoustic and optical techniques, enables the mapping of the seabed to attain increasingly larger resolutions. However, all these techniques sample the surface to reconstruct in the form of a point cloud. For the case of areas containing non-trivial 3D relief, achieving a continuous representation from this discrete sampling is a complex task. Surface reconstruction methods try to tackle this problem by recovering a continuous surface representing the object in…

15 May
Angelos Pdh
In AUV, CIRS, News, THESIS by cirs-media

Angelos Mallios defends his PhD Thesis “Sonar Scan Matching for Simultaneous Localization and Mapping in Confined Underwater Environments”

This thesis presents the development of a localization and mapping algorithm for an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). It is based on probabilistic scan matching of raw sonar scans within a pose-based simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) framework.   To address the motion-induced distortions affecting the generation of full sector scans, an extended Kalman filter (EKF) is used to estimate the robot motion during that scan. The filter uses a constant velocity model with acceleration noise for motion prediction.Velocities from Doppler velocity log (DVL) and heading measurements from attitude and heading reference system (AHRS) are fed asynchronously and update the state….

28 April
phd-galceran
In AUV, CIRS, News, THESIS by cirs-media

Coverage Path Planning for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Doctoral thesis “Coverage Path Planning for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles” By Enric Galceran, PhD student of the Doctoral Program in Technology Supervised by Dr. Marc Carreras Pérez   Abstract At present, a mission to survey the ocean floor with an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) is typically planned by selecting a list of waypoints that then the vehicle will automatically navigate through while keeping a safe distance from the bottom. Nonetheless, this approach has major drawbacks: (1) it does not allow the vehicle to safely operate amidst protrusions on the sea floor; (2) when traversing rugged terrain, the vehicle is forced to…

07 April
morph-experiments
In AUV, CIRS, GIRONA 500, News, Projects, SPARUS II by cirs-media

7FP European Project MORPH: the next step in the future of underwater robotics

From 7-11th April 2014, a number of autonomous underwater and surface vehicles (robots) from several European institutions will be tested in the Costa Brava area, Spain. The tests will be carried out by 26 scientists from Germany, Portugal, Italy, France, and Spain. The major goal of these field trials is to demonstrate that the MORPH ensemble of vehicles can acquire data to map the sea bottom while operating in a cooperative manner and reacting to environmental conditions. The trials will focus on the execution of an optical and acoustic surveying mission with two surface and two underwater vehicles moving in…

01 April
ASM
In CIRS, News, THESIS, Underwater Mapping by cirs-media

Automated underwater object classification using optical imagery

PhD Thesis “Automated underwater object classification using optical imagery” By Shihavuddin, A.S.M Supervised by Dr. Nuno Grácias, Dr. Rafael García   Abstract This thesis addresses the problem of automated underwater optical image characterization. Remote underwater optical sensing allows the collection and storage of vast amounts of data for which manual classification may take months. Supervised automated classification of such datasets can save time and resources and can also enable extraction of valuable information related to marine and geological research.

28 March
MAPEADA
In AUV, CIRS, GIRONA 500, News, SPARUS II, Underwater Mapping by cirs-media

INSPECSUB project at MAP-EADA entrepreneurship program

EADA is a Business School located in the heart of Barcelona. Its masters are ranked amongst the top in the world according to The Financial Times and it is accredited by the most reliable agencies, such as EQUIS or AACSB. EADA has been developing highly skilled professionals since 1957 with the mission of training managers of companies and organizations who are economically efficacious, socially responsible and environmentally friendly through research and education.   EADA has developed several business collaborations with private and public agencies. One that has proven to be the most successful in the past years is the ACC10…