Tutorials and Workshops

Presenters: Prof. Roee Diamant, University of Haifa
Session Length: Full day, 09.00-17.00
Room B2-005, level 2, Main Building

Requirements for attendees: Participants must bring their own laptop for the hands-on sessions, with MATLAB  program installed.

Topics Covered:
In this workshop, we will examine the theoretical foundation of underwater acoustic signal detection and offer some practical techniques. We will introduce the existing noise models, and discuss ways to estimate their parameters. Based on these, several theoretical bounds for detection performance will be presented. Traditional and state-of-the-art detection schemes will be studied, and analyzed by their suitability to the underwater domain. We will then focus on tailor-made solutions for both active and passive underwater signal detection, and show some test cases on practical applications. In the second part of the workshop, the attendees will practice on detection of signals over both simulations and using real signals recorded at sea. Finally, the current research challenges will be reviewed.

Prof. Roee Diamant is an Associate Prof. at the Dept. of Marine Technologies, University of Haifa, and heads the underwater Acoustic and Navigation Laboratory (ANL). He received his PhD from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of British Columbia, in 2013, and his B.Sc. and the M.Sc. degrees from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, in 2002 and 2007, respectively. From 2001 to 2009, he worked in Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, Israel, as a project manager and systems engineer, where he developed a commercial underwater modem with network capabilities. In 2015 and 2016, he was a visiting Prof. at the University of Padova, Italy. In 2009, he received the Israel Excellent Worker First Place Award from the Israeli Presidential Institute. In 2010, he received the NSERC Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship. Prof. Diamant has received three Best Paper awards and serves as an associate editor for the IEEE Journal of Ocean Engineering. He was the coordinator of the EU H2020 project SYMBIOSIS (BG-14 track) and is the recipient of the EU ERA-Chair appointment to the University of Zagreb, Croatia. His research interests include underwater acoustic communication, underwater localization and navigation, object detection and classification, and sonar signal processing.

Presenters:  Maurizio Migliaccio,  Ferdinando Nunziata Dipartimento di Ingegneria, Università di Napoli Parthenope
Session Length: Full day, 09.00-17.00
Room C2-062, level 2, Main Building

Requirements for attendees: Familiarity with Python/Matlab, bring own laptop with Python/Matlab installations.

Topics Covered:
The Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is a microwave active imaging radar that, due to its all- day and almost all-weather observation abilities together with a fine-to-moderate spatial resolution, is a very versatile remote sensing instrument for regional-scale applications. Nowadays, there is an increasing trend in the number of conventional or small satellite scientific and commercial missions equipped with very high-performance SARs operating in a range of frequencies that span from P-band up to K-band and capable of performing both intensity-only and polarimetric measurements. This means that the huge amount of SAR measurements collected (especially in coastal areas) calls for robust and effective models and methods to generate added value products.
This full-day tutorial is to describe the leading-edge methodologies and the underpinning physical rationale to generate multi-polarization SAR added-value products for coastal area applications complementing the subjects addressed by Technical Session Topics 4 and 6. Selected topics will be addressed both theoretically and experimentally (i.e., showcased on real SAR measurements). First, preliminary analysis will be carried on multi-polarization SAR imagery to gain familiarity with basic concepts of speckle filtering, speckle statistics, Pauli RGB decomposition, etc. Then, advance methods will be showcased focusing on selected applications, namely sea surface pollution monitoring, ship/target detection and coastline extraction).

Ferdinando Nunziata is a Telecommunication engineer. Since 2018, he has been Associate professor in electromagnetic fields with the Università degli Studi di Napoli “Parthenope”. From 2010 to 2018, he was Assistant professor in electromagnetic fields with the Università degli Studi di Napoli “Parthenope”. He is the author/coauthor of more than 100 peer-reviewed journal papers on microwave remote sensing, covering both theoretical aspects (e.g.; multi-polarization scattering from rough surfaces, radar polarimetry, bistatic scattering, inverse problems) and applications (e.g.; marine and maritime applications) His expertise includes both active (SAR) and passive (radiometer) microwaveinstruments. Dr. Nunziata has been IEEE Senior Member since 2014 and he has been in the organizing committee of several conferences focused on remote sensing. He serves as Associate Editor for the scientific journals “IEEE JSTARS” and “MDPI Remote Sensing”. Since 2022 he has been Chair of the OES Ocean Remote sensing TC and he has been OES Distinguished Lecturer with topics related to microwave remote sensing for coastal area applications.

Maurizio Migliaccio, Fellow IEEE, is a Full Professor of Electromagnetics at Università degli Studi di Napoli Parthenope and affiliate to Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) – remote sensing section. He was Affiliated Full Professor at NOVA Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL (USA). He was born and educated in Italy and since 1994 teaches University courses on microwave remote sensing with emphasis of environmental applications and its role on sustainability. He was visiting scientist at Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fur Lüft und Raumfahrt (DLR), Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. He was member of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) scientific committee. He was member of the ASI CosmoSkyMed second generation panel. He was e-geos AdCom member. He was Italian delegate of the ESA PB-EO board. He was Member of South Africa Expert Review Panel for Space Exploration. He serves as reviewer for the UE, Italian Research Ministry (MIUR), NCST, Kazakhstan and Hong Kong Research board. He lectured in USA, Canada, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Ecuador Germany, Spain, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Hungary and Italy. He was Italian delegate at UE COST SMOS Mode Action. He is listed in the Italian Top Scientists. He is an IEEE Trans. Geoscience and Remote Sensing AE, International Journal of Remote Sensing AE, and was IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering AE Special Issue on Radar for Marine and Maritime Remote Sensing, IEEE JSTARS AE of the Special Issue on Cosmo-SKyMed, Member of the Indian Journal of Radio & Space Physics Editorial board. He is presently serving as IEEE Italy OES Chapter Chairman and he was promoter and organizer of the 2022 IEEE OES Mediterranean PhD School. He is an IEEE OES Distinguished Lecturer. His main current scientific interests cover SAR sea oil slick and man-made target monitoring, remote sensing for marine and coastal applications, remote sensing for agriculture monitoring, polarimetry, inverse problems for resolution enhancement, reverberating chambers. He published about 180 peer-reviewed journal papers on applied electromagnetics.

Presenters: Lubna Luxmi Dhirani , University of Limerick
Session Length: Half day, 09.30-12.30
Room C1-058, level 1, Main Building

Requirements for attendees: Software tools, activities and excel sheets for standards will be practiced, so participants should have their own laptops.

Topics Covered:
To prevent, protect and build a Marine Cyber Resilient environment it is essential to understand the threats and risks it is exposed to and how standards implementation provide cyber governance, risk and control. This tutorial will enable participants to (i) understand different threat scenarios, risks (ii) analyse and implement cybersecurity and regulatory standards (iii) building cyber resilience (iv) and mitigating risk.

Topics covered will include: IT/OT Convergence, ENISA Threat landscape, Marine Risk Scenarios, Standards, NIST Cybersecurity Framework, GDPR, NIS2D, Cyber Resilience Act.
On successful completing of this tutorial, participants will be able to:

• LO1: Assess manage and apply the reporting standards relevant to IT and OT.
• LO2: Evaluate the cyber threat landscape associated with IT/OT convergence.
• LO3: Value and accept the importance of laws, standards and ethics in computing

Lubna Luxmi Dhirani is a Lecturer at Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering (E&CE), University of Limerick, Ireland. Lubna teaches Cybersecurity modules at HEA HCI Pillar 3 programs CyberSkills and UL@Work. She is the Course Director for the BSc Cybersecurity Practitioner Apprenticeship program at University of Limerick. Lubna is the first Women In Engineering (WIE) Ambassador from Ireland in the IEEE WIE (UK&I Section). In her previous role as a Postdoc, she worked on “Securing Machine to Machine (M2M) communications in Industry 4.0” – Industry based project funded by Johnson & Johnson and Confirm SFI Research Centre. Lubna did her PhD in Electronic and Computer Engineering from University of Limerick in 2019, being the first women from her Ethnic community in Pakistan to pursue a degree in this field. Her PhD project was based on “Six Sigma based Novel Approach in resolving Hybrid Cloud Computing QoS and SLA-based issues in Heterogenous Cloud Environment”. Lubna did MSc in Business Information Technology from Southampton Solent University, United Kingdom and has worked as a lecturer for 3 years, teaching IT-based courses at SZABIST, United Arab Emirates and ISRA University, Pakistan. She did B.Eng in Computer Systems from Mehran University of Engineering & Technology, Pakistan. Lubna is a Senior Member IEEE, her research interests include: Cybersecurity Standards, Cyber Law, Data Security – Governance Risk and Control, Cloud, Business and IT Standards. Lubna’s publications are listed at: Lubna Luxmi Dhirani (researchgate.net). Lubna has delivered many International and SFI CRT workshops in Cybersecurity Standards and Regulations.

Presenters: Charalampos Tsimenidis, Nottingham Trent University, School of Science and Technology,
Session Length: Half day 9.30-12.30
Room D1-050 (John Holland), level 1, Main Building

Requirements for attendees: Not specified.

Topics Covered:
The tutorial will cover the design of signalling waveforms that are suitable for utilisation in underwater acoustic (UA) modems. These will include PN sequences with low auto and cross-correlation properties, chirp design, in conjunction with pulse shaping and modulation schemes such as orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDM), direct sequence and multi-carrier code division multiple access (DS- and MC-CDMA). The tutorial will also address underwater channel modelling and simulation methodologies for half and full-duplex systems that are useful in evaluating "dry" performance of UA systems. Furthermore, the design of digital receiver algorithms will be considered that utilise adaptive receive arrays, carrier-phase and symbol timing recovery, Doppler compensation, multi-user detection and self-interference cancellation methodologies.

The tutorial will cover:

• Overview of the Underwater Acoustic Channel
• Signal Waveform Design
• Adaptive Algorithms for Single-Element Receiver Design
• Phase Tracking and Doppler Compensation
• Full-Duplex Systems

Charalampos C. Tsimenidis is Professor of Digital Innovation at Nottingham Trent University. He received his MSc (with distinction) and PhD in Communications and Signal Processing from the Newcastle University in 1999 and 2002, respectively. His main research interests are in the area adaptive array receivers for wireless communications including demodulation algorithms and protocol design for underwater acoustic channels. During the last 25 years he has published over 250 conference and journal papers, supervised successfully over 50 Ph.D. Students and made contributions in the area of transceiver design for underwater acoustic communications to several European (MAS3-CT97-0099, MAS3-CT97-0107, EVK3-CT-2000-00039) and UK funded research projects (EP/V009583/1, EP/R002665/1, EP/P017975). He is a senior member of the IEEE, a member of the IET, and Associate Editor of the IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering (2017-present).

Presenters: Alfonso Sá , João Costa, LSTS , Portugal
Session Length: Half day 9.30-12.30
Room B2‐011, level 2, Main Building

Requirements for attendees:  Laptop, Unix environment

Topics Covered:
The LSTS control architecture has an off-board component and an on-board component. These are implemented with the help of the LSTS Neptus-IMC-Dune software toolchain. This is a software framework for mixed-initiative command and control (humans in the planning and control loops) of unmanned underwater, surface, and aerial vehicles. These unique toolchain features build on experience with the coordinated operation of heterogeneous vehicles.
Neptus is a distributed command, control, communications and intelligence framework for operations with networked vehicles, systems, and human operators. Neptus supports all the phases of a mission life cycle: world representation; planning; simulation; and, execution, and post-mission analysis. IMC is a communications protocol that defines a common control message set understood by all LSTS nodes (vehicles, consoles, or sensors) in networked environments. This provides for standard coupling of heterogeneous components in terms of data interchange. DUNE is the vehicle’s on-board software. It is used to write generic embedded software at the heart of the vehicle, e.g., code for control, navigation, or to access sensors and actuators. It provides an operating-system and architecture-independent C++ programming environment for modularly writing efficient real-time reactive tasks.

In this tutorial, we will showcase the LSTS Toolchain, a set of software tools developed at the University of Porto by the Underwater Systems and Technology Lab (LSTS) to control, plan, monitor, and supervise teams of heterogeneous vehicles in communication-challenged environments. In this session, an overview of the main components of the toolchain will be given, and a demonstration of how to use it will take place. This session will also give a Neptus overview and demonstrate how new vehicles can be integrated into a multi-vehicle system by exposing capabilities and performing the assigned behaviors.

Afonso Sá has been an Informatics and Computing Engineer at LSTS since 2022. He is a software developer working on Ripples tool and AI (computer vision and prediction models). Afonso holds a Master's degree in Informatics and Computing from FEUP. His master's thesis focused on building a new interface for Ripples, with the intent of reducing visual entropy, improving planning and supervision of missions in remotely controlled environments, as well as reducing the operator's workload and increasing their situational awareness.

João Costa is a Robotics Engineer at LSTS since 2020. He is a firmware and software developer, part of the UAV operational team, and has experience building and operating RPAS. João holds a master’s degree in Electrotechnical Engineering, specializing in Robotics, from FEUP. His master’s thesis aimed to make a cooperative path following a controller that makes drones follow a desired path and a flock achieve consensus, entitled "Drone Flock: formation control of multi-drones”.

Presenters: Stephen DeLory, VP Engineering, Terradepth, Inc. Austin, USA
Session Length: Half day (CANCELLED)

Requirements for attendees:  Not specified.

Topics Covered:
The goal of the workshop is to walk participants through the process of collecting, processing, hosting, and using ocean data. Although there is a myriad of ocean data types that look at the water column, the seabed, and the ground beneath the seabed, we will focus on seabed mapping using sidescan sonar data. Sidescan sonar presents a very usable and intuitive ‘map’ of the seabed that is visually comprehensible, comparatively easy to process, and useful to many users.

The attendees will gain the following knowledge in the following topic areas:

• Definition of vertically integrated ocean data
• Types of ocean data collection platforms
• Types and sources of ocean data
• Basics of underwater acoustics and sonar types
• Sidescan sonar signals
• Sidescan sonar presentations and mensuration
• Sidescan analysis
• Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) design
• AUV mission planning
• File upload and folder structuring for Absolute Ocean data platform
• Data analysis using OpenSidescan and Absolute Ocean to derive information and knowledge and wisdom.

Steve DeLory . Steve is a project manager and electrical engineer with 18 years’ experience in leading projects and designing power and controls systems for aircraft, surface and subsurface vessels, and locomotives. Steve began his working career as an Air Combat Systems Operator on Canadian Navy shipborne helicopters. With over 1200 flying hours and numerous awards for combat effectiveness and successful Search and Rescue missions, Steve was assigned the position of Air Officer on board a Canadian Navy destroyer, leading a 15-man maintenance team and eight aircrew. Steve designed and constructed data acquisition systems for the H-3 Sea King helicopter. After pursuing a MS in Space Operations at the Air Force Institute of Technology, Steve led space initiatives and training for the Canadian Air Force, and retired as the Missile Warning Center Commander in NORAD’s Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center. After retirement, Steve was the Colorado Springs Office manager for Applied Research Associates, working on defense as well as marine offshore projects for 3 years. Following this engagement, Steve was engaged as the Engineering Manager for Aspin Kemp and Associates, a maritime engineering company, and led a team of 30 technical staff that carried out over three hundred projects a year in shipyard locations in Canada, Singapore, and S. Korea. Steve began consulting in 2009 for 12 years worked for a global suite of clients and companies in locations around the world. Steve is currently the VP Engineering for Terradepth, Inc. and leads the development of ocean technologies, including autonomous surface and subsurface vehicle (AxV) technologies.

Presenters: Shayla Fitzsimmons, Jeff Cullis, CIOOS Atlantic, Halifax
Session Length: Half day, 13.30-16.30
Room C1-058, level 1, Main Building

Requirements for attendees: Participants should have their own laptops or tablets.

Topics Covered:
To ensure all participants have been introduced to the same suite of data management concepts, a brief introduction will provide background, along with those terms and principles which form the foundation of data management activities. The importance of data management will be reiterated and reinforced, with specific focus on open versus restricted data and the FAIR, CARE, and TRUST principles. The majority of the tutorial will focus on management of metadata and data, with participants invited to use a provided dataset or to bring a dataset from their own research on which to work. (As this tutorial will focus on physical and biochemical data, we would ask that the ocean observation data in self-provided datasets fall within these parameters.) The ISO 19115 metadata standard will be introduced and applied along with the Climate and Forecast metadata and data conventions. Utilizing the Canadian Integrated Ocean Observing System (CIOOS) metadata profile and data standards as an exemplar, participants will be guided through the creation of a metadata profile based on the ISO 19115 standard. This profile was developed through collaboration with some of the foremost experts on ocean data management in Canada, and applies national and international best practices. Participants will also be guided through application of the commonly-used Climate and Forecast conventions.
Presenters will be available for one-on-one feedback and assistance during the hands-on portions of the tutorial, each of which will be preceded by short presentations that provide supplementary information, including tips and best practices, to guide participants through the process. Participants will also be encouraged to ask questions and share knowledge amongst themselves. The tutorial will begin with an icebreaker activity to encourage networking and to facilitate this increased knowledge exchange.

Shayla Fitzsimmons is the Executive Director of the Canadian Integrated Ocean Observing System Atlantic (CIOOS Atlantic), where she leads efforts to address technical and human factor challenges in the open sharing of ocean data. She is a strong proponent of open data and promoting best practices in ocean data management, and is currently involved in several initiatives to explore and advance data sharing. Shayla holds an MBA (2017) and MSc in Chemistry (2011), and a BSc in Chemistry and Computer Science, from Dalhousie University.

Jeff Cullis . In his role as technical director, Jeff Cullis has worked with the CIOOS Atlantic technical team towards implementation of the cioosatlantic.ca website, data catalogue, data access services, as well as working with a range of regional data providers to help make their data findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable via the CIOOS Atlantic platform.

Working with the CIOOS national metadata task team, Jeff contributed to a detailed review of the ISO19115 geographic information metadata profile, and customization of this profile to meet the specific needs of Canada’s integrated ocean observing system. Jeff’s national work has also included the organization of regular virtual code sprints that have helped CIOOS produce process improvements and new feature development for the CIOOS data catalogue, metadata entry form, data transformation and integration tools, data products, and tools for working with biological data. Prior to joining CIOOS Atlantic, Jeff’s background included positions as bioinformatician with the BC Cancer Agency, and at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Jeff has completed BSc. and Msc. programs in computer science from the University of Victoria and Dalhousie University, respectively.

Presenters: Juraj Obradović, Natko Kraševac, Ivan Lončar, Fausto Ferreira, University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing
Session Length: Half day, 13.30-16.30
Room B2-011, level 2, Main Building

Requirements for attendees: Participants should have their own laptops.

Topics Covered:
Research in marine robotics requires frequent use of simulators due to the complexity of trials which usually have to be conducted at some body of water. We are presenting our high-fidelity simulator MARUS (Marine Robotic Unity Simulator)[1][2] that offers advanced capabilities of generating realistic maritime environments allowing for closer-to-reality V&V of applications developed for maritime vehicles. The simulator offers synthetic dataset generation with perfect annotations for various sensors (cameras, LiDAR, sonar) and allows for interaction with the environment for closed loop simulation. This simulator is highly applicable for the researchers in the field of marine robotics in industry and academia and it has been used in a myriad of applications such as diver-robot interaction, unmanned ships etc. [3][4]. MARUS simulator is built in Unity Engine as it provides tools for generating realistic environments and easy to use interface for quick setup which makes it a perfect tool for development of a simulator.

Juraj Obradović is a researcher in the Laboratory of Underwater Systems and Technologies (LABUST) at the University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER). He received his MSc in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology from FER in 2021 and joined LABUST right after graduation. During his time at college, he worked on various projects in the field of robotics and developed an interest in SLAM, reinforcement learning, and formation control. He is currently enrolled in the development of an autonomous ship.

Natko Kraševac received a MSc in Computer Science from the University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing – UNIZG FER in Zagreb (Croatia) in 2020. During the studies, his background was mainly computer vision, deep learning and AI with focus on application in autonomous driving. After graduation, Natko worked in web development field before diving into marine robotics. He is currently working as a researcher at LABUST, FER.

Ivan Lončar received an MSc in Control Engineering and Automatization from the University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing – UNIZG FER in Zagreb (Croatia) in 2016. Even before graduation, he started working in Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies – LABUST at UNIZG FER. As of 2017, Ivan is pursuing a PhD in Marine Robotics, specifically in Underwater Localization. During his time in the laboratory, he was involved in multiple research projects including ONR NICOP Advancing Diver-Robot Interaction Capabilities - ADRIATIC, H2020 Submarine Cultures Perform Long-term Robotic Exploration of Unconventional Environmental Niches – subCULTron, H2020 Excelling LABUST in marine robotics - EXCELLABUST, and nationally funded HRZZ project Cooperative robotics in marine monitoring and exploration – CroMarX. He is the Treasurer of the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society Student Branch Chapter of the University of Zagreb.

Dr. Fausto Ferreira is a Leading Researcher at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing. His research activities are conducted within the Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies (LABUST).He has been involved in 9 EU Projects (FP6, FP7, H2020, INTERREG) and 2 Office of Naval Research Global (ONRG) projects (including a Visiting Scientist Program grant). Dr. Ferreira is a senior member of IEEE and the Vice-President for Workshops and Symposia of the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society (OES). He serves as an Associate Editor and in the Board of Directors of Earthzine, an IEEE OES publication. He holds over 40 peer-reviewed papers including a patent and a book chapter and has reviewed for over 15 international journals. His research interests include underwater computer vision, sonar processing, marine law for unmanned marine vehicles, robotics competitions, and educational robotics.
Previously, the presenters had participated in similar tutorials on three separate occasions. All three tutorials were held as part of the Breaking the Surface workshop, two in 2021 and one in 2022. As part of the Breaking the Surface workshop in 2021, the tutorial called Marine Unity Simulator was held. It was the first time the MARUS simulator was presented and the aim of the tutorial was to introduce a new way of simulating marine systems and to get feedback on the simulator itself. The feedback was great and we were motivated to develop additional features for the simulator.

Presenters: Zonghua Liu (NOC), Tomoko Takahashi (JAMSTEC), Yang Weng (IIS), John Watson (University of Aberdeen)
Session Length: Half day, 13.30-16.30
Room D1-050 (John Holland), Level 1, Main Building

Requirements for attendees: Not specified.

Topics Covered:
Through participating in this tutorial, the audience will learn about the main existing techniques of underwater optical sensing and data transmission, and refresh or acquire related know-how. A highlight of this tutorial will be our presentation of a comprehensive package on the concept of in-situ study of marine particles and organisms, ranging from data collection to data processing, and then reaching to data storage and transmission in its various formats: optical imaging, chemical sensing, hybrid measurement and realtime data transmission.The audience will also be most actively involved in the tutorials’ Case Study and Web-Based Survey sections. In the Case Study, they will be encouraged to provide ideas and solutions to some existing issues in an advanced underwater system at TRL 4 level (Technology Readiness Levels). We will all discuss and forecast the future development of underwater optical sensors in Web-based Survey.

Dr Zonghua Liu: He studied as a PhD student in the University of Aberdeen between 2014 and 2018, and his study areas were digital holography, image processing, and pattern identification and classification. He was a project researcher at the IIS in the University of Tokyo between 2019 and 2022, and his research was focusing on underwater detection using optical holography and Raman spectroscopy, signal and image processing, and pattern identification and classification. He is now an Ocean Computer Vision Scientist at the National Oceanography Centre, UK. His current research focuses on in-situ imaging of marine particles using multiple subsea imaging systems, and profiling particle size distributions with depth.

Dr Tomoko Takahashi: She received the B.Sc. degree in engineering, M.Sc. degree and Ph.D. degree in environmental studies from the University of Tokyo, Japan, in 2012, 2014 and 2017, respectively. She is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology. Her research interests focus on underwater spectroscopic techniques for in-situ chemical analysis of deep-sea rocks and particles. She currently works on development of methods for autonomous and continuous monitoring of marine particles, particularly microplastics.

Dr Yang Weng: He received the Ph.D. degree in environmental science with the Department of Ocean Technology, Policy and Environment, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, in 2022. From 2018 to 2019, he was a Visiting Student with the Photonics Laboratory, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia. From 2019 to 2020, he was a Visiting Researcher with the Intelligent Autonomous Systems Laboratory, TU Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany. His research interests include underwater wireless optical communication, robot learning, and autonomous underwater vehicles.

Prof John Watson: He has over 40-year experience on optical engineering and holography and is a Fellow of IEEE, the (UK) Institute of Physics (IOP) and the Institution of Electrical Technology (IET). He is also the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society’s Vice President for OES/MTS OCEANS Conferences. He holds an Emeritus Chair of Electrical and Optical Engineering at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. The research group which he established acquired an international reputation in underwater holography and digital holography and his team developed two unique subsea holographic cameras to image and analyse plankton. Both have been deployed extensively in Scottish sea lochs and in the North Sea. Other specialisms include work on 3DTV, subsea laser welding, laser microspectral analysis, optical image processing, display and colour holography. He has published extensively in learned journals and conference proceedings, and has published textbooks on “Optoelectronics”, “Subsea Optics” and “Digital Holography” and has presented several invited papers and guest lectures at Universities and Institutions around the world.

Presenters: Thomas Allen, Elspeth McMahon, Jeremiah Cronin, Old Dominion University, Norfolk,
Session Length: Half day, 13.30-16.30
Room C1-063 (Charles Parsons), level 1, Main Building

Requirements for attendees: Not specified.

Topics Covered:
Tutorial presenters will provide short presentations with a panel discussion and interactive audience presentation. Case studies of Old Dominion University’s customized Hydrone sASV will be presented, illustrating its application to estuarine shoreline change analysis, shallow-water hydrographic surveys, and water quality data collection. Allen will cover technical dimensions and case studies, mission planning, and efficient workflows with GIS, water quality and hydrographic survey products and visualizations. McMahon will discuss relevant nautical rules of the road pertinent to autonomous vessels including those peculiar to small ASVs operating in ports and tidal environments. Cronin will present and lead discussion of the entrepreneurial and commercial factors and implications for the industry widely, such as law enforcement, ocean energy, and business development opportunities and challenges.

Dr. Tom Allen, Institute for Coastal Adaptation and Resilience, Old Dominion University
With more than 25 years of experience in coastal and marine geospatial analysis, Dr. Allen (Professor of Geography) has more than 60 scientific publications. He serves as Program Head for Sea Level and Climate Science in the ICAR institute at Old Dominion. His most relevant recent work focuses on integrating small ASV vessel and UAV platforms and sensors and GIS techniques for coastal environmental change and hazards. He is a past Chair of the Coastal and Marine Geography Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers.

Elspeth McMahon, Associate Vice President for Maritime Initiatives, Old Dominion University
Elspeth McMahon has nearly twenty years of experience in the dynamic commercial, military, and education sectors of the maritime industry. McMahon is a Commander in the U.S. Navy Reserves with extensive experience working for Military Sealift Command as a Strategic Sealift Officer. She holds a USCG Chief Mate’s License and has sailed commercially for Maersk Lines, Limited. McMahon is leading the maritime initiatives of Old Dominion University while nearing completion of her doctoral degree in Nautical Sciences at the University of Antwerp and Antwerp Maritime Academy.

Jeremiah Cronin, OpenSeas Technology Innovation Hub, Old Dominion University
Jerry Cronin is the Executive Director the OpenSeas Technology Innovation Hub at Old Dominion. He works with entrepreneurs, researchers, industries, organizations, and communities to identify problems; discover and de-risk innovative solutions; and develop and deploy sustainable, scalable solutions into the marketplace. He leads commercialization efforts at the university in areas such as lean start up methodologies, global best practices, and supporting resources to assist companies, individuals, regions, and organizations. He is a graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and served as a Coast Guard shipboard operations officer redesigning and pioneering the use of computer-based training and simulation in maritime law enforcement.

Presenters: Itzik Klein, Kobi Libero, Nadav Cohen (University of Haifa)
Session Length: Half  day (workshop), 09.30-12.30
Room C1-063 (Charles Parsons), level 1, Main Building

Requirements for attendees: Not specified.

Topics Covered:
The objective of this workshop is to share and explore new frontiers and technologies in the field of autonomous underwater vehicle navigation using model-based approaches and novel learning methods.
In this workshop we aim to present novel model and learning based methods for INS/DVL fusion and address solutions for robust and accurate navigation in three possible fusion scenarios pending DVL measurement availability: 1) complete measurements (normal conditions), 2) partial measurements, and 3) no measurements (DVL outages).

The workshop will include the following topics:

• Prof. Itzik Klein, Model-based INS/DVL fusion in situations of complete/partial DVL measurements
• Prof. Itzik Klein, ProNet: A hybrid adaptive velocity aided navigation filter
• Kobi Libero (PhD student), A multiple inertial measurement unit filter for AUV navigation
• Nadav Cohen (PhD student), Data-driven approaches enhancing DVL velocity vector solution

Prof. Itzik Klein  received B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Aerospace Engineering from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel, in 2004 and 2007, respectively, and a Ph.D. degree in Geo-information Engineering from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, in 2011. He is currently an Assistant Professor, heading the Autonomous Navigation and Sensor Fusion Lab, at the Hatter Department of Marine Technologies, University of Haifa. Itzik serves as an IEEE Senior Member and has exceptional experience in navigation systems and sensor fusion. Prior to joining the University of Haifa, he worked at leading companies in Israel on navigation topics for more than 15 years. Among the areas of his research are the intersection of artificial intelligence with navigation and sensor fusion in order to protect oceans and the environment, as well as developing tools for autonomous vehicle teamwork.