MERLIN
Title: Demonstration of long-endurance intelligent multi-purpose autonomous vehicles for marine applications
Funding Source: EU HEurope
Budget IMBBC: 404,240€
Start / End Date: 2024 - 2028
Web site URL: https://merlin-project.org/
Project Progress: 16%
Principal Investigator:
Project Members:
Research Directions:
Environmental genomics
Marine biodiversity
Ecology and ecosystem management
Description:
MERLIN is a high-risk collaborative project that aims to develop and demonstrate in the field, novel surface and underwater autonomous systems with intelligent operational capability. The MERLIN project will exploit the unique long-endurance capabilities using hydrogen fuel cells, which was demonstrated during the H2020 ENDURUNS project. The project will seek to move the developed technology to the next level, where such systems will be capable of operating truly autonomously based on AI algorithms without the need for human intervention in a similar fashion as state-of-the-art land-based automobiles. The AUVs and USVs demonstrated during the latter part of the project under actual operational conditions will be able to interact with each other automatically and make decisions regarding the mission profile based on the objectives set by the system operator originally. The technology will be demonstrated under actual operational conditions using three different mission profiles. Firstly, in the Western Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Barcelona, for evaluation of marine habitats; secondly, in Eastern Mediterranean for seabed mapping and monitoring of the Kolumbo volcano, close to Santorini island in the Aegean Sea; and thirdly, in the Baltic Sea at Klaipeda Port and its vicinity for infrastructure inspection.
The project is led by Professor Mayorkinos Papaelias at the University of Birmingham (UK) and involves 18 institutions from 9 countries, with a total budget of 8 million euros. The budget for HCMR amounts to €498,951.25, with Dr. P. Polymenakou as the principal investigator. It has been internally divided into two sub-projects: MERLIN-IMBBC, led by Dr. Polymenakou with a budget of €404,240.00, and MERLIN-IMBRIW, led by Dr. Chris Smith with a budget of €94,711.25. HCMR's participation in the project includes key involvement in WP2: Specifications and Requirements for Seaborne Systems and Missions, and WP8: Field Trials of Novel Intelligent Systems under Actual Conditions. HCMR is leading Task 8.2: Seabed Survey and Water Column Mission at the Kolumbo Underwater Volcano. The interdisciplinary team includes Dr. Paraskevi Polymenakou and Dr. Manolis Mandalakis from IMBBC, as well as Dr. Chris Smith, Konstantia Papadopoulou, and the lead ROV engineer and pilot Leonidas Manousakis from IMBRIW. All team members bring extensive experience in the planning and execution of oceanographic missions and will play a crucial role in the preparation and implementation of this operation.