Summary
Our oceans are the least-explored region of planet Earth. Protection and sustainable development of ocean resources presents formidable challenges. Robots will play an increasingly key role in the near future and this role will expand and become more challenging as we extend into deeper, remote and hostile marine environments. Europe leads in many aspects of maritime, but lacks well integrated and coordinated oceanic robotic infrastructure or presence.
The marine-robotics industry is growing rapidly. It is a crucial high-value/high-cost sector with considerable entry barriers to R&D. The full growth potential of this industry will be greatly enhanced with access to shared robotic research infrastructure.
EUMarineRobots (EUMR) proposes an access-infrastructure for the deployment of a full-range of aerial, surface and sub-surface marine robotic assets, the combined value of which is far greater than the sum of their parts. EUMR will open transnational access to significant national marine robotics R&D assets across Europe.
Objectives
The main objective of the EUMR project is to open up key national and regional marine robotics research infrastructures (RIs) to all European researchers, from both academia and industry, ensuring their optimal use and joint development to establish a world-class marine robotics integrated infrastructure.
- O1. The provision of access for researchers from academia and industry to state-of-the-art infrastructures
- O2. The provision of access for researchers from academia and industry to large-scale sea experiments
- O3. The provision of opportunities for researchers from academia and industry to develop and evaluate operating concepts for high added-value applications
- O4. The provision of access for researchers from academia and industry to data
- O5. Provide uniform access to RIs to facilitate distributed experimentation and testing and to contribute to standardization
- O6. Provide uniform training for users of the infrastructures
- O7. Enhance the utilization of marine robotic infrastructures
- O8. Contribute to address current and future societal marine challenges
- O9. Develop business plans with the goal of ensuring sustainability of the proposed infrastructures
- O10. Contribute to the extension of the “robotics revolution” to marine robotics
- O11. Contribute to the cross-fertilization of ideas, tools, technologies, and methods
- O12. Contribute to the efficient and effective utilization of infrastructures in Europe
Partners
The EUMR consortium comprises 15 partners from 10 countries who, collectively, can deploy a comprehensive portfolio of marine robotic assets with required associated support assets and expertise. The network is a strong and balanced grouping of globally distinguished key players with diverse, track-record of excellence across marine / robotic sectors. Partners are members of a wide variety of existing networks, and research infrastructure collaborations both formal and informal across Europe and the world. EUMR is a first stage in aggregating these networks and assets as world-leading for support and growth of a strong community of practice in marine robotics and marine.