The EMRA Workshop on EU-funded Marine Robotics and Applications (EMRA), a well-established event in the field of marine robotics, took place in Arenzano, Italy, from May 27th to 29th. This year’s edition was hosted by the Institute of Marine Engineering of the Italian National Research Council (INM-CNR).
Matheus Santos, our new PostDoc, presented two EU projects in which CRIS has been involved: Rapid and Blue Point. The Rapid project, which concluded in November 2023, focused on delivering a fully automated and safety-assured maintenance inspection service for bridges, ship hull surveys, and more.
Dr. Santos also provided an overview of the Blue Circular Economy of Marine Plastics (BluePoint), highlighting the project’s objectives and the centre’s role. In this project, UL CRIS research has focused on utilizing drones for identifying marine plastic, developing payloads, and processing images. The AI system being developed will automatically detect plastics in various marine environments, including the sea, beaches, and riverbanks.
The workshop featured a diverse group of speakers from ongoing H2020-H-Europe projects, industry, end users, and stakeholders. This interdisciplinary event provided an excellent opportunity for networking and the cross-fertilization of ideas in marine robotics, enabling technologies, and applications.
The next EMRA will be held in Trondheim and hosted by NTNU.
