Making sense of marine and maritime processes through intelligent information acquisition and sharing
Protecting the marine environment and promoting social and economic progress requires understanding the complex interactions between marine and maritime processes. Due to limited sensing, processing, communications, and power resources the required level of understanding can only be reached through agile information acquisition and information sharing. This talk describes two research and innovation projects that support environmental, social, and economic sustainability via intelligent data acquisition and information sharing and environmentally sustainable food production. The first is the MARI-Sense project that develops intelligent open-access decision support systems that enable human operators to make sense of the complex marine and maritime environment and optimally plan activities. The MARI-Sense project will drive the development of disruptive solutions in maritime IoT, classification and sequential estimation software, optimization and swarm intelligence methods, and a visualization pipeline. The second is the OS Aqua project that will provide a roadmap for establishing an Open Sea Aquacultural Industry in the Eastern Mediterranean. OS Aqua will significantly increase food production while minimizing impact on the natural environment. OS Aqua will define maritime zones, design facilities, automatization and monitoring systems, and conduct a financial sustainability study. The talk will also include an overview of work done at the Maritime Digitalization Center of the Cyprus Marine and Maritime Institute.