Research themes

Autonomous and robotic technologies

This theme focusses on unmanned and robotic platforms that are capable of remote operation, automated sensor logging, or autonomous missions. Such platforms include the BlueROV2, the FLEXUS remotely operated towed vehicle, and the NordMak MKII in-trawl multi-beam sonar. Sonar and optical imagery are a major focus for sensor integration on the platforms, enabling mapping of environment, species and marine habitats.

Current development of the platforms aims to enable automatic mission execution, monocular optical image mosaicking, and mapping of 3D structures. Additionally, the theme embraces design of electrical and mechanical components to increase the reliability and usability of unmanned platforms for end-users who are not trained experts, allowing for wider usage of the platforms for citizen science.

Technologies for acoustic monitoring

This theme relies on active underwater acoustic technologies including wide-band echosounders, multibeam video imaging and sidescan sonar applications to improve mapping and monitoring of living resources and bottom features. Fishery applications encompass data collection and processing from open ocean surveys, high-resolution moorings, and in-trawl monitoring systems. Methods for mapping of underwater vegetation and marine litter are also developed under this theme.

Special focus is on solutions for long endurance monitoring under sea ice, mapping of arctic resources in collaboration with the Greenland Institute for Natural Resources. These data rich technologies are then combined with smart data processing using computer vision and artificial intelligence.

Big data analytics

This theme focusses on data science, processing, visualization, often using machine learning and deep learning approaches for large-scale ocean datasets. This includes in-situ time-series measurements, mechanistic models, and remote sensing measurements, which are combined to build digital representations of the ocean.

The long term goal of the group is to provide data-driven forecasting of marine events, as well as identify and forecast indicators for ecosystem state to support integrated assessments and management of marine ecosystems. Dedicated high performance computing infrastructures are available to storage, manage and process big ocean data.