The OES Portugal Chapter joins researchers from multiple institutions that have been intensively involved in ocean-related research and development activities. These institutions are part of a network of national organizations with extensive expertise in ocean-related activities, that collectively carry efforts to develop novel tools that make sustainable ocean explorations and exploitation a reality. The large number of researchers in Portugal addressing ocean-related problems is certainly linked to the unique characteristics of the vast Portuguese Atlantic territory, both along the water column and on the ocean floor.
Examples of multiple research activities and results of these researchers in the last months can be found below. The extent of these activities underscores why the 2018 IEEE OES Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Symposium and the OCEANS 2021 conference will be coming to Porto, Portugal.
A Glimpse into the Future of Marine Research, May 2017
The Laboratório de Sistemas e Tecnologias Subaquáticas (LSTS) from Porto University was one of the research partners involved in MBARI 2017 CANON experiments https://www.mbari.org/a-glimpse-into-the-future-of-marine-research/. The LSTS contribution was powered by the LSTS open-source software tool chain https://www.lsts.pt/toolchain.
Operations with NTNU in Mausund, Norway, May 2017
A team from the Laboratório de Sistemas e Tecnologias Subaquáticas (LSTS) participated with one Light Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (LAUV) https://www.lsts.pt/vehicles/lauv in a field study for the ENTICE project https://www.sintef.no/en/projects/entice/ in which other LAUVs from NTNU’s AUR laboratory https://www.ntnu.edu/aur-lab were also used. The field study took take place in open waters 10km north of Mausund with the goals of collecting data regarding the temporal variance of physical characteristics of the water column and studying abundance and biodiversity along the vertical structure.
MEDUSA DEEP SEA AUV, EEA Grants project, May 2017, Lisbon, PT— testing of an indigenous AUV with the capability to operate down to depths of 3,000 m and perform seabed mapping tasks. The vehicle was developed by a consortium of partners from Portugal and Norway, under the coordination of CEiiA. For the first time in May 2017 the vehicle successfully dived to 1,500 m and showed excellent performance of its navigation and control systems. The new platform, entirely developed in Portugal, is due to play an important role in mapping vast regions of the extended continental shelf of the country in cooperation with the EMEPC, the organization responsible for the studies supporting the request for extension of Portugal’s continental shelf.
MarinEye EEA Grants project, May 2017
The innovative multi-trophic monitoring system developed within this project combines a range of technologies capable of providing data that gives an integrated view of the different compartments of the ocean (physical, chemical, biological) at different levels of knowledge (from genomics to biogeochemistry and from micro to macro community dynamics). The project was led by CIIMAR (Interdisciplinary Center for Marine and Environmental Research) and counted with the participation of the Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, IPMA (Portuguese Sea and Atmosphere Institute), and INESC TEC.
EU MARINE UAS Innovative Training Network (ITN), 19–29 June, 2017, IST, Lisbon, PT—Organization of the 1st MARINE UAS Summer School of the EU MARINE UAS Innovative Training Network (ITN) on Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Systems for Marine and Coastal Monitoring, in cooperation with the 2nd EC WiMUST project Summer School and the NETSyS doctoral program, 19–29 June, IST, Portugal. The School included the participation of 30 invited speakers—from academia and the industry—and 25 doctoral students from across Europe and represented an excellent forum for the presentation and discussion of theoretical and practical issues with a special focus on the interaction between UAV, ASV, and AUV systems and the dual use of space and ocean-related technologies—https://www.itk.ntnu.no/marineuas/Marine%20UAS.html
The Laboratório de Sistemas e Tecnologias Subaquáticas (LSTS) is a partner in the Expanded Underwater Robotics Ready for Oil Spill (e-URready4OS) project. The 2018 March issue of Marine Technology Reporter had an article about the e-UReady4OS project and the oil-spill incident response exercise that took place in Cartagena, Spain, June 2017. https://magazines.marinelink.com/nwm/MarineTechnology/ 201803/#page/26
Thematic Workshop on Sensing the Deep Sea, June 2017
Within the scope of the EU funded STRONGMAR project, INESC TEC together with partners from the University of Aberdeen (School of Engineering, Optical Research Group), organized the Thematic Workshop on Sensing the Deep Sea, that took place on the 20th of June 2017, within the OCEANS’17 MTS/IEEE Aberdeen conference. The program focused on subsea sensing, subsea optical sensing, instrumentation and optical imaging, remote sensing, optics, imaging, vision and E-M system.
Rapid Environmental Picture Atlantic Exercise 2017 (REP17-Atlantic), July 2017
REP-Atlantic is a yearly exercise organized by the Portuguese Navy, the NATO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation and the Laboratório de Sistemas e Tecnologias Subaquáticas (LSTS) targeted at advancing the state of art in networked vehicle systems through large scale experimentation in real-life operational scenarios. The 2017 edition of this exercise took place in July 2017 off Tróia, Portugal. The participants in the exercise also included the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), the University of Hawaii, the University of Aveiro, the Belgium Navy, Carnegie Mellon University, Czech Technical University in Prague and Hidromod.
EMSO-PT Research Infrastructure Kick-Off, July 2017
Coordinated by IPMA (Portuguese Sea and Atmosphere Institute), the EMSO-PT research infrastructure joins together the Portuguese ocean-related research community. EMSO-PT observatories will merge “off-the-shelf” technology, which will ensure that they will meet the International standards, with novel approaches (based on networked, autonomous observation platforms) that will contribute to more sustainable monitoring operations and will create the basis for the development of new marine products and services, creating value and qualified jobs. In the mainland, two sites will be considered, one deep (Cadiz) and another shallow (North Portugal). The site to be developed in North Portugal will be a test bench for emerging monitoring strategies. In the Azores, two main areas have been the focus of EMSO-PT: LuckyObs, mainly driven by the French colleagues and the CondorObs focused on seamount ecosystems.
Mapping the Plume of the Douro river, August 2017
A team from the Laboratório de Sistemas e Tecnologias Subaquáticas (LSTS) from Porto University mapped the plume of the Douro river with coordinated Light Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (LAUV). These experiments were synchronized with overpasses of different satellites with the goal of validating remote sensing data with in-situ measurements.
FLEXUS Unmanned Vehicles, September 2017
A multidisciplinary team from INESC TEC conducted a training session for some researchers and operators of the RAWFIE consortium that took place from 5 to 7 September, 2017, at the Navy Base of Skaramagkas, near Athens, Greece. The training addressed the use of the FLEXUS USV fleet, a set of 10 USVs developed at INESC TEC and provided to the RAWFIE consortium. The session covered a set of technical topics, including USVs handling, deployment, operation, recovery and maintenance. Additionally, a demonstration of the FLEXUS USVs capabilities was performed using several vehicles in a typical outdoor environment. Hands-on experience was also provided to the attendees. Further to training, the FLEXUS solution was successfully integrated in the testbed where the USVs will execute missions (experiments) to collect data for researchers within the scope of the RAWFIE project.
TEC4SEA Research Infrastructure Kick-Off, September 2017
The TEC4SEA research infrastructure is a unique and pioneer platform in Europe to support research, development, and test of marine robotics, telecommunications, and sensing technologies for monitoring and operating in the ocean environment. Its characteristics, geographic location allowing fast access to deep sea, and support of multidisciplinary research, enable full validation and evaluation of technological solutions designed for the ocean environment, allowing researchers to evolve from simulation/lab experiment to field trial. It is coordinated by INESC TEC and also counts with the participation of CINTAL from University of Algarve.
ERL Emergency Robots, September 2017INESC TEC aerial robotics teams, besides having won multiples prizes in specific challenges, integrated the team that won the Grand Challenge competition ERL Emergency Robots, 2017, that took place in Piombino, Italy, in September 2017. The winning team was also constituted by elements of the terrestrial robotics team TELEROB and the underwater robotics team from the University of Girona.
Mapping the Belinho Shipwreck, September 2017Researchers from the Laboratório de Sistemas e Tecnologias Subaquáticas (LSTS) from Porto University were part of an international team involved in the discovery and mapping of a shipwreck from the 16th century found in Esposende, north of Porto, Portugal. http://www.omare.pt/en/atividade/belinho-16th-century-shipwreck/. The team included researchers from Instituto de Arqueologia e Paleociências/Instituto de História Contemporânea da Universidade Nova de Lisboa IAP/IHC FCSH-UNL, Câmara Municipal de Esposende, SHIPLAB, Texas A&M University, LSTS, OceanScan—Marine Systems and Technology, ForSEADiscovery project and CANAL—Centro de Arqueologia Náutica do Alentejo Litoral (IAP/IHC-FCSH and Câmara Municipal de Alcácer do Sal).
¡VAMOS! Project Live Demonstration, October 2017
In October 2017, the EU funded project ¡VAMOS! organized a live demonstration of technologies for operations in flooded mines at the Imerys Minerals Ltd. test site in Lee Moor, Devon, UK. EVA robot, a hybrid ROV/AUV system developed at INESC TEC, that collects multimodal information to provide situation awareness data in mining operations, was one of the novel technologies presented at this event.
Maritime Technology in Conference, November 2017
Entitled “A Sea of Technology”, the annual scientific conference of the STRONGMAR project was held on 16 November, 2017, at the Almeida Garrett Municipal Library, Porto, Portugal. Organized by INESC TEC, this initiative counted with the participation of about 100 researchers, and several renowned speakers talking about “SMART cables”, “Subsea 3D laser imaging”, “Underwater mining”, “Offshore Oil and Gas Operations”, “Subsea Digital Holography” and “Underwater acoustics”.
Raia.co Award, November 2017
The Laboratório de Sistemas e Tecnologias Subaquáticas (LSTS) was a partner in the RAIA.co—Oceanographic Observatory of the Iberian Margin and the Nearshore, an INTERREG project in which the first WAVY drifters were developed by LSTS. The project has received the 2016 award for the Development of International Cooperation delivered at the 4th Atlantic Stakeholders Platform Conference that took place in November, 2017, in Glasgow.The Laboratório de Sistemas e Tecnologias Subaquáticas (LSTS) is a partner in the H2020 MELOA project funded by European Funding for Research and Innovation https://www.ec-meloa.eu/. Running from December 2017 to February 2021, MELOA is targeting the development of an innovative family of drifters, based on the LSTS WAVY drifters, allowing for a low-cost, easily deployable, high versatility, and low maintenance system for in-situ measurements for marine environments.
2017 IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology Outstanding Paper Award
Collaborators and researchers of the Laboratório de Sistemas e Tecnologias Subaquáticas (LSTS) co-authored this paper: Walter Caharija, Kristin Pettersen, Marco Bibuli, Pedro Calado, Enrica Zereik, José Braga, Jan Tommy Gravdahl, Asgeir J. Sørensen, Milan Milovanovi´c, and Gabriele Bruzzone, Integral Line-of-Sight Guidance and Control of Underactuated Marine Vehicles: Theory, Simulations, and Experiments, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, Vol. 24, No. 5, pages 1623–1642, September 2016.
+Atlântico Project, 2017, Lisbon, PT—Launching of a new project entitled +Atlântico, following approval by the Portuguese Funding Agency FCT of a proposal submitted to the Carnegie-Mellon-Portugal Program. The project addresses a number of topics with a focus on: Research, Engineering and Industry (Subsea Technologies, Specialized Platform Support Vessels and Off-shore Platforms, Sustainable Ports, Risk Governance, and “Smart Fields”) Commercialization, and Observations. The project brings together a large number of promoters and partners from academia and the industry that include the EMEPC, ONIP, GALP ENERGIA, Technip/ Lusotechnip, CEIIA, WAVEC, MARETEC), Univ. Madeira (OOM and MITI), and CMU.
EU WiMUST project, January 2018, Sines, PT—for the first time worldwide, in the scope of the EU WiMUST project (http://www.wimust.eu/) coordinated by ISME, Italy, a demonstration was done at sea in Sines, Portugal, with a fleet of seven autonomous surface and underwater vehicles developed by ISR/IST, ISME, and GraalTech, capable of performing geotechnical seismic surveys cooperatively, in fully autonomous mode, exchanging data and commands over an acoustic communications network. In the tests, two surface vehicles carried powerful acoustic sparkers for seabed and under the seabed insonification, while a group of five surface and underwater robots pulled streamers equipped with hydrophones to acquire geophysical data. This landmark will be instrumental in the development of a new breed of autonomous systems for geotechnical surveys with a high potential for commercial applications.
Winter School on Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Systems for Marine and Coastal Monitoring, Porto, Portugal, January, 2018
The winter school of the Marine Unmanned Air Vehicles project funded by the EU Horizon 2020 Framework programme, under the Marie Sklodowska Curie Innovative Training Network program, had over 30 participants. The programme of this winter school had approximately twenty talks (including four keynotes) covering several subjects in the scope of Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Systems for Marine and Coastal Monitoring and work sessions targeting algorithm development, software integration, and simulation https://marineuasws.lsts.pt/home
Marine Robotics School, NIO, Goa, India, 12–17 February, 2018—Co-organization, together with partners from India, of a “Marine Robotics School” at the National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, India. The school targeted an audience of app. 80 graduate students and research engineers from across India and covered a large spectrum of theoretical and practical issues pertaining to single and multiple vehicle navigation, guidance, and control of marine robots including humans in the loop. There was a special focus on the use of acoustic networks for multiple vehicle navigation and control. The school included experiments with real vehicles and acoustic equipment provided by Evologics, Germany. This concerted action paved the way for the strengthening of on-going cooperation links between ISR/IST, NIO, and other partners in India, Korea, and Europe.
http://www.nio.org/index/option/com_eventdisplay/task/view/tid/4/sid/24/eid/260
EUMarine Robots Kick Off Meeting, March 2018
The kick-off meeting of the H2020 Marine robotics research infra-structure network project https://www.eumarinerobots.eu/ (EU Marine Robots), funded by European Funding for Research and Innovation and coordinated by Porto University through LSTS, took place March 2nd, 2018 in Porto. The partners are: University of Porto; University of Bremen; Associação do Instituto Superior Técnico para a Investigação e Desenvolvimento; University of Genoa; Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, University of Zagreb; University of Girona; University of Limerick; Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands; Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation; Heriot-Watt University; Norwegian University of Science and Technology; Marine Institute; Distretto Ligure delle Tecnologie Marine; Natural Environment Research Council; and, Institut Français de Recherche pour l’exploitation de la Mer. The main objective of the project is to open up key national and regional marine robotics research infrastructures (RIs) to researchers worldwide and establish a world-class marine robotics integrated infrastructure.
Oceanology International, London, March 2018
The H2020 Marine robotics research infra-structure network project https://www.eumarinerobots.eu/ (EU Marine Robots) coordinated by Porto University through LSTS had a booth at this event. The booth was targeted at disseminating the project and at engaging the marine robotics community in the calls for transnational access to EU marine robotic infra-structures. The calls will start opening by the end of 2018. https://www.eumarinerobots.eu/tna.
Shell XPRIZE Ocean Discovery Finalists, March 2018
The Portuguese team PISCES, led by INESC TEC, and also counting with researchers from CINTAL/University of Algarve, is one of the nine finalist teams moving forward to Round 2 testing of the Shell Ocean Discovery XPrize international competition. The PISCES team has been developing DART—a deep water portable AUV, that together with complementary systems for underwater navigation and mapping, will be able to map deep ocean areas with high accuracy. More information at http://pisces.inesctec.pt/
H2020 BRIDGES Project Ultra-Deep Glider Vídeo, April 2018
The Laboratório de Sistemas e Tecnologias Subaquáticas (LSTS) is a partner of the H2020 BRIDGES project funded by European Funding for Research and Innovation http://www.bridges-h2020.eu/. A video released recently describes BRIDGES’ (Ultra) Deep Glider capabilities https://youtu.be/lIOPDwlJ30U
Acknowledgment. This article received valuable contributions from the following members of OES Portugal section: Alfredo Martins, António Pascoal, João Sousa, and Nuno Cruz.
Suleman Mazhar has been working as a professor in Information & Communication Engineering at Harbin Engineering University (China) since July 2019. He did PhD from Tokyo University (Japan) and postdoctorate from Georgetown University (Washington DC, USA). He had BS-CS from FAST-NUCES (Lahore) and MS from GIK Institute (Pakistan). He is TYSP young scientist fellow (Ministry of Science & Technology China) and have won several research grants from international organizations such as DAAD (Germany), ICIMOD (Nepal), NRPU (Higher Education Commission Pakistan), WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature) Pakistan. His research focus is deep learning and signal processing applications for environmental monitoring, with particular focus on underwater acoustics, and marine mammal conservation. He is a reviewer for professional journals such as Journal of Acoustical Society (America), IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, IEEE Sensors Journal, Applied Acoustics, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems.
Peng Ren is a full professor with the College of Oceanography and Space Informatics, China University of Petroleum (East China). He is the director of Qingdao International Research Center for Intelligent Forecast and Detection of Oceanic Catastrophes. He received the K. M. Scott Prize from the University of York, the Natural Science award (first rank) from China Institute of Electronics, and the Eduardo Caianiello Best Student Paper Award from 18th International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing as one co-author. He has served as an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.
Mohd Rizal Arshad is a full professor at the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Malaysia, where he specializes in ocean robotics technology and intelligent system. He received his B.Eng. in Medical Electronics & Instrumentation and PhD in Electronic Engineering from University of Liverpool, UK in 1994 and 1999, respectively. He completed his MSc. in Electronic Control Engineering from the University of Salford, UK in Dec 1995. He has supervised many postgraduate students and published extensively in local and international publications. He is a senior member of the IEEE, and was awarded IEEE OES Presidential Award in 2019.
Itzik Klein is an Assistant Professor, heading the Autonomous Navigation and Sensor Fusion Lab, at the Charney School of Marine Sciences, Hatter Department of Marine Technologies, University of Haifa. He is an IEEE Senior Member and a member of the IEEE Journal of Indoor and Seamless Positioning and Navigation (J-ISPIN) Editorial Board. Prior to joining the University of Haifa, he worked at leading companies in Israel on navigation topics for more than 15 years. He has a wide range of experience in navigation systems and sensor fusion from both industry and academic perspectives. His research interests lie in the intersection of artificial intelligence with inertial sensing, sensor fusion, and autonomous underwater vehicles.
John R. Potter (IEEE M’94, SM’02, F’18) graduated in the previous century with a joint honours Mathematics and Physics Degree from Bristol and a PhD. in Glaciology and Oceanography from Cambridge, UK studying Antarctic ice mass balance, where he spent four consecutive summers. This work helped underscore the non-linear fragility of polar ice to climate change and led to him receiving the Polar Medal from Queen Elizabeth II in 1988.
Nick is a Visiting Fellow at the UK National Oceanographic Center, Southampton His nomination was endorsed by the Underwater Acoustics Technology Committee. He had worked as a Research Associate and Lecturer at University of Birmingham and has been working as a Research Scientist at the Applied Research Laboratory, University of Texas, Austin. He has also served as a Program Officer at the Office of Naval Research Global. He is a senior member of IEEE (OES) and a Fellow of Acoustical Society of America (ASA). Nick has also been serving as Assoc. Editor for IEEE JoE and JASA. He is widely acknowledged for his expertise are seabed acoustics, parametric array modeling, sonar beamformer, underwater signal processing.
Maurizio Migliaccio (M’91-SM’00-F’17) is Full professor of Electromagnetics at Università di Napoli Parthenope (Italy) and was Affiliated Full Professor at NOVA Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL (USA). He has been teaching Microwave Remote Sensing since 1994. 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, Germany, Spain, Czech Republic, Switzerland 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 CosmoSKyMed, Member of the Indian Journal of Radio & Space Physics Editorial board. 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 160 peer-reviewed journal papers on remote sensing and applied electromagnetics.
He has developed various types of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) and related application technologies including navigation methods, a new sensing method using a chemical sensor, precise seafloor mapping methods, a precise seabed positioning system with a resolution of a few centimeters, a new sensing system of the thickness of cobalt-rich crust; and more. He has shown, by using these technologies that AUVs are practicable and valuable tools for deep-sea exploration.
Donna Kocak has had an outstanding career in defense and scientific projects developing and applying solutions in subsea optics, imaging and robotics. She graduated with an M.Sc in Computer Science in 1997 from the University of Central Florida; an MBA in 2008 from the University of Florida; and M.Sc in Industrial Engineering in 2011 from the University of Central Florida. She is currently a Senior Scientist, Advanced Concepts Engineering, and Fellow at the Harris Corporation in Melbourne, Florida, where she has developed novel optical imaging and communication solutions for under-sea defense and scientific projects. Prior to 2008 Donna Kocak was Founder and President of Green Sky Imaging, LLC (GSI) who developed laser/video photogrammetry software for underwater inspection and survey. Her earlier career positions were with Naval Training Systems Center, Florida; Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, Florida; eMerge Interactive; and the Advanced Technologies Group in Florida.
John Potter has a Joint Honours degree in Mathematics and Physics from Bristol University in the UK and a PhD in Glaciology and Oceanography from the University of Cambridge on research in the Antarctic, for which he was awarded the Polar Medal in 1988. John has worked on polar oceanography, underwater acoustics, ambient noise (including imaging), marine mammals, communications, IoUT, autonomous vehicles and strategic development. He has 40 years’ international experience working at the British Antarctic Survey in the UK, NATO in Italy, SIO in California, NUS in Singapore and most recently at NTNU in Norway. John is a Fellow of the IEEE and MTS, an Associate Editor for the IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, IEEE OES Distinguished Lecturer, PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer & an International Fellow of the Explorer’s Club.
Dr. James V. Candy is the Chief Scientist for Engineering and former Director of the Center for Advanced Signal & Image Sciences at the University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dr. Candy received a commission in the USAF in 1967 and was a Systems Engineer/Test Director from 1967 to 1971. He has been a Researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory since 1976 holding various positions including that of Project Engineer for Signal Processing and Thrust Area Leader for Signal and Control Engineering. Educationally, he received his B.S.E.E. degree from the University of Cincinnati and his M.S.E. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida, Gainesville. He is a registered Control System Engineer in the state of California. He has been an Adjunct Professor at San Francisco State University, University of Santa Clara, and UC Berkeley, Extension teaching graduate courses in signal and image processing. He is an Adjunct Full-Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Candy is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and elected as a Life Member (Fellow) at the University of Cambridge (Clare Hall College). He is a member of Eta Kappa Nu and Phi Kappa Phi honorary societies. He was elected as a Distinguished Alumnus by the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Candy received the IEEE Distinguished Technical Achievement Award for the “development of model-based signal processing in ocean acoustics.” Dr. Candy was selected as a IEEE Distinguished Lecturer for oceanic signal processing as well as presenting an IEEE tutorial on advanced signal processing available through their video website courses. He was nominated for the prestigious Edward Teller Fellowship at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dr. Candy was awarded the Interdisciplinary Helmholtz-Rayleigh Silver Medal in Signal Processing/Underwater Acoustics by the Acoustical Society of America for his technical contributions. He has published over 225 journal articles, book chapters, and technical reports as well as written three texts in signal processing, “Signal Processing: the Model-Based Approach,” (McGraw-Hill, 1986), “Signal Processing: the Modern Approach,” (McGraw-Hill, 1988), “Model-Based Signal Processing,” (Wiley/IEEE Press, 2006) and “Bayesian Signal Processing: Classical, Modern and Particle Filtering” (Wiley/IEEE Press, 2009). He was the General Chairman of the inaugural 2006 IEEE Nonlinear Statistical Signal Processing Workshop held at the Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge. He has presented a variety of short courses and tutorials sponsored by the IEEE and ASA in Applied Signal Processing, Spectral Estimation, Advanced Digital Signal Processing, Applied Model-Based Signal Processing, Applied Acoustical Signal Processing, Model-Based Ocean Acoustic Signal Processing and Bayesian Signal Processing for IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society/ASA. He has also presented short courses in Applied Model-Based Signal Processing for the SPIE Optical Society. He is currently the IEEE Chair of the Technical Committee on “Sonar Signal and Image Processing” and was the Chair of the ASA Technical Committee on “Signal Processing in Acoustics” as well as being an Associate Editor for Signal Processing of ASA (on-line JASAXL). He was recently nominated for the Vice Presidency of the ASA and elected as a member of the Administrative Committee of IEEE OES. His research interests include Bayesian estimation, identification, spatial estimation, signal and image processing, array signal processing, nonlinear signal processing, tomography, sonar/radar processing and biomedical applications.
Kenneth Foote is a Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from The George Washington University in 1968, and a Ph.D. in Physics from Brown University in 1973. He was an engineer at Raytheon Company, 1968-1974; postdoctoral scholar at Loughborough University of Technology, 1974-1975; research fellow and substitute lecturer at the University of Bergen, 1975-1981. He began working at the Institute of Marine Research, Bergen, in 1979; joined the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1999. His general area of expertise is in underwater sound scattering, with applications to the quantification of fish, other aquatic organisms, and physical scatterers in the water column and on the seafloor. In developing and transitioning acoustic methods and instruments to operations at sea, he has worked from 77°N to 55°S.
René Garello, professor at Télécom Bretagne, Fellow IEEE, co-leader of the TOMS (Traitements, Observations et Méthodes Statistiques) research team, in Pôle CID of the UMR CNRS 3192 Lab-STICC.
Professor Mal Heron is Adjunct Professor in the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, and is CEO of Portmap Remote Ocean Sensing Pty Ltd. His PhD work in Auckland, New Zealand, was on radio-wave probing of the ionosphere, and that is reflected in his early ionospheric papers. He changed research fields to the scattering of HF radio waves from the ocean surface during the 1980s. Through the 1990s his research has broadened into oceanographic phenomena which can be studied by remote sensing, including HF radar and salinity mapping from airborne microwave radiometers . Throughout, there have been one-off papers where he has been involved in solving a problem in a cognate area like medical physics, and paleobiogeography. Occasionally, he has diverted into side-tracks like a burst of papers on the effect of bushfires on radio communications. His present project of the Australian Coastal Ocean Radar Network (ACORN) is about the development of new processing methods and applications of HF radar data to address oceanography problems. He is currently promoting the use of high resolution VHF ocean radars, based on the PortMap high resolution radar.
Hanu Singh graduated B.S. ECE and Computer Science (1989) from George Mason University and Ph.D. (1995) from MIT/Woods Hole.He led the development and commercialization of the Seabed AUV, nine of which are in operation at other universities and government laboratories around the world. He was technical lead for development and operations for Polar AUVs (Jaguar and Puma) and towed vehicles(Camper and Seasled), and the development and commercialization of the Jetyak ASVs, 18 of which are currently in use. He was involved in the development of UAS for polar and oceanographic applications, and high resolution multi-sensor acoustic and optical mapping with underwater vehicles on over 55 oceanographic cruises in support of physical oceanography, marine archaeology, biology, fisheries, coral reef studies, geology and geophysics and sea-ice studies. He is an accomplished Research Student advisor and has made strong collaborations across the US (including at MIT, SIO, Stanford, Columbia LDEO) and internationally including in the UK, Australia, Canada, Korea, Taiwan, China, Japan, India, Sweden and Norway. Hanu Singh is currently Chair of the IEEE Ocean Engineering Technology Committee on Autonomous Marine Systems with responsibilities that include organizing the biennial IEEE AUV Conference, 2008 onwards. Associate Editor, IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, 2007-2011. Associate editor, Journal of Field Robotics 2012 onwards.
Milica Stojanovic graduated from the University of Belgrade, Serbia, in 1988, and received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Northeastern University in Boston, in 1991 and 1993. She was a Principal Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in 2008 joined Northeastern University, where she is currently a Professor of electrical and computer engineering. She is also a Guest Investigator at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Milica’s research interests include digital communications theory, statistical signal processing and wireless networks, and their applications to underwater acoustic systems. She has made pioneering contributions to underwater acoustic communications, and her work has been widely cited. She is a Fellow of the IEEE, and serves as an Associate Editor for its Journal of Oceanic Engineering (and in the past for Transactions on Signal Processing and Transactions on Vehicular Technology). She also serves on the Advisory Board of the IEEE Communication Letters, and chairs the IEEE Ocean Engineering Society’s Technical Committee for Underwater Communication, Navigation and Positioning. Milica is the recipient of the 2015 IEEE/OES Distinguished Technical Achievement Award.
Dr. Paul C. Hines was born and raised in Glace Bay, Cape Breton. From 1977-1981 he attended Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, graduating with a B.Sc. (Hon) in Engineering-Physics.