Ralf Bachmayer

Dr. Bachmayer is Professor for Marine Environmental Technology and Deepsea Engineering as part of the Innovation Center for Deep-Sea Environmental Monitoring supported by the Werner Siemens-Foundation at MARUM – University of Bremen, Germany. His main research interests lie in the domain of marine robotics with a focus on unmanned marine systems. In particular he is interested in the design, control and networking of heterogeneous marine observation systems. He has been working in the field of underwater robotics since 1993, working on various aspects of underwater robotic systems, including identification and control of marine thrusters. For his Post-doctoral research he was conducting research on multi-vehicle applications and adaptive sampling with AUVs and underwater gliders. As an Associate Professor, he started the Autonomous Ocean Systems Laboratory (AOSL) at Memorial University of Newfoundland. There, with his research team he developed and deployed unmanned marine vehicles and systems for harsh environments. One of them an autonomous iceberg profiling system consisting of the semi-submersible USV SEADRAGON working in tandem with a hybrid underwater glider to perform autonomous iceberg profiling above and below water. Since joining the University of Bremen’s Center for Marine Environmental Sciences (MARUM) and Department of Computer Science and Mathematics he holds the Professorship in Marine Environmental Technology/Deep-Sea Engineering where his research group is currently developing a new generation of AUVs for minimally invasive seafloor exploration.