WS#7 Marine robotics: challenges, trends and opportunities
Gabriele Ferri (NATO CMRE), Enrico Simetti (University of Genova)Room 14-16
Questions to be answered
- Which are the biggest challenges to solve to make marine robotics robust enough to be used in many real-world applications?
- How can new technologies help us to reach this? Which are the most promising new technologies/approaches?
- Which is the current situation, trends and opportunities in underwater intervention/inspection and manipulation, underwater perception and autonomy?
Description
The technological evolution of the last decades has made the use of marine robots, both underwater and surface, a reality. In the next years, thanks to the advances in autonomy and Artificial Intelligence (AI), these systems are expected to become more and more popular in real-world applications.
However, several challenges remain to be addressed and fully solved. Market barriers, common to the different applications, are still present. Difficulties of underwater operations, lack of power and endurance, severely limited electromagnetic propagation for both sensing and communications, lack of power and endurance and underwater communications and networking are considered the most critical technological obstacles to the use of these systems. On the other hand, lack of regulations (legal, liability, insurance, safety and security) for the use in the field of marine robots, lack of accepted standards to improve interoperability, were identified as the non-technological barriers.
It is necessary to address these challenges to make the use of marine robots popular and common also by end-users non expert in robotics.
In this workshop we will discuss these challenges and current trends in marine robotics, driven by the new technologies becoming more and more mature.
We will invite some keynote speakers to illustrate their experience in some of the identified areas such as underwater intervention, with a special focus on underwater manipulation, underwater perception and robot autonomy. Robust solutions in these topics are crucial in order to develop useful, reliable robotic systems in the near future.The idea is to gather people both from industry and research to present different perspectives on the open challenges and the needs to be faced in the next future. The workshop will conclude with a round table to involve the invited speakers and people from the public to discuss and define future opportunities and trends.
Organisation of the WS
0:00-00:10 Introduction and report on TG activities by TG Coordinators
0:10-0:22 Presentation by Peter Kampmann - Rosenxt Group - industry (Germany) talking about the marine robotics industry perspective on the use of marine robotics more and more autonomous in the energy sector.
0:22-0:34 Presentation by Pere Ridao, University of Girona - academia (Spain) to illustrate the challenges and opportunities in combining advanced perception, autonomy and manipulation.
0:34-0:75 Round table with speakers, subject matter experts and TG Coordinators. Discussion will focus on the challenges and opportunities of using marine robots in real-world applications,, with a special focus on underwater manipulation, perception and the increase in the use of autonomy. The discussion will explore how new technologies, such as advanced perception, machine learning and new resident-autonomy paradigms can impact the market. Public will be invited to participate in the discussion.
0:75-0:80 Conclusion by the TG Coordinators
Intended outcome
An overview of the state of the art on marine robotics and definition of new trends of interest and how they can be combined to develop the marine robots of the future, more autonomous and more capable to accomplish real-world operations.
Speakers, Panelists, etc
- Gabriele Ferri - CMRE - organizer/moderator
- Enrico Simetti - University of Genova - organizer/moderator
- Pere Ridao - University of Girona, speaker/panelist
- Peter Kampmann - Rosenxt Group, spealer/panelist
- Federico Celi - CMRE - panelist
Topic Groups and/or Innovation networks involved
Marine Robotics Topic Group
Projects involved
Further information
Organisers
- Gabriele Ferri (NATO CMRE), gabriele.ferri@cmre.nato.int
- Enrico Simetti (University of Genova) enrico.simetti@unige.it