ECOBOTICS.SEA — Bio-inspired Technologies for a Sustainable Marine Ecosystem

Results in brief

Bio-inspired Technologies for a Sustainable Marine Ecosystem

ECOBOTICS is a Research and Innovation Action that aims at environmental monitoring and control as the main application area. The vision of the ECOBOTICS project is to research completely novel approaches in Robotics, with special emphasis on its use for the monitoring, protection and preservation of a variety of ecosystems and animal and plant species, which occur in remote, unstructured domains with interface media. The project focus on the research, design and development of robotic systems whose versatility is substantially increased by the incorporation of metamorphic design concepts that make the robots reconfigurable. This enhanced versatility is required for the project’s main application environments including “transition media” such as mixtures of solids and fluids, gaseous and liquid, etc. Another aspect to be addressed thoroughly by the project is the research on, and the conception of, advanced sensing systems for robots which enable are required for operating in such extreme environments. Two types of robots will be researched and developed: one type for underwater operations and another type for aerial operations. Six specific use cases will be targeted and a specific methodology will be developed to serve the design and manufacturing the “ECOBOTICS Systems”. The methodology will establish a common framework for design robots for persistent monitoring of environment. From there, 3 Common Prototypes will be developed, and each one will be configured to respond to 2 use cases and demonstrated in realistic environments and operational conditions. The consortium is composed by 6 European research institutes specialized in robotics, specialist in metamorphic design, probabilistic computing and AI. Two large companies specialized in environmental assessment and 2 SMEs. The partners distribution includes members from Germany, Austria, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Estonia. ECOBOTICS is also closely affiliated with the European RISE project ECOBOTICS.SEA.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

ECOBOTICS.SEA is a future-oriented 4-year research project with a research-driven human-resources training network in itscenter.ECOBOTICS.SEA focuses on the research of underwater robotics and biomimetics concepts and technology, targeting problems andneeds in the real world that are related to the study of biospheres, species and ecosystems and their preservation.8 Early-Stage Research Projects (ESRP) compose the research plan. The research to be carried out in these 8 ESRPis organized into 5 scientific work packages. The core of the research activities is constituted by 88 months ofsecondments within the partner network which are essential for ensuring the required knowledge and know-how transferbetween the partners.The partner network is composed by 3 universities and R&D institutes and 3 companies located in European member states,plus 1 R&D in Third Countries. The consortium is highly interdisciplinary, aggregating excellence from various domains, including robotics,biomimetics for water/underwater systems, automation, biology, ecosystem preservation, entrepreneurship and anthropology applied to species preservation.Workshops, summer schools and international conferences serve as complementary measures, not only for furtherstimulating the exchange of knowledge and providing training, namely to the ESRs, but also for achieving the 4 scientificobjectives as specified in the proposal. ECOBOTICS.SEA also incorporates a detailed and well defined career and risk management and training towards application-oriented R&D.Finally, the project is planned to establish an open community that will grow over time and enlarge its impact during and beyond the period of this project, resulting in a lasting, truly international R&D and business network beyond the project’slifetime.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

INSTITUTO DE SISTEMAS E ROBOTICA-ASSOCIACAO · CoimbraCoordinatorPortugal
EVOLOGICS GMBH · BERLINGermany
FLYING ROBOTIC SOLUTIONS SOCIEDAD LIMITADA · LA RINCONADASpain
FOBOS SOLUTIONS SL · VIGOSpain
HUMAN CENTERED AND BIOINSPIRED IDEAS FOR DAILY LIFE SRL · PONTEDERAItaly
INSTITUTO SUPERIOR TECNICO · LisboaPortugal
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF OCEANOGRAPHY · PanajiIndia
SCUOLA SUPERIORE DI STUDI UNIVERSITARI E DI PERFEZIONAMENTO S ANNA · PisaItaly
TALLINNA TEHNIKAÜLIKOOL · TallinnEstonia
TRIDIVISIONS, LDA · COIMBRAPortugal

ECOBOTICS.SEA · Bio-inspired Technologies for a Sustainable Marine Ecosystem

Results in brief

Bio-inspired Technologies for a Sustainable Marine Ecosystem

Project objective

Participants

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