Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ECOBOTICS.SEA (Bio-inspired Technologies for a Sustainable Marine Ecosystem)
Reporting period: 2022-11-01 to 2024-10-31
ECOBOTICS is a Research and Innovation Action that aims at environmental monitoring and control as the main application
area. The vision of the ECOBOTICS project is to research completely novel approaches in Robotics, with special emphasis
on its use for the monitoring, protection and preservation of a variety of ecosystems and animal and plant species, which
occur in remote, unstructured domains with interface media. The project focus on the research, design and development of
robotic systems whose versatility is substantially increased by the incorporation of metamorphic design concepts that make
the robots reconfigurable. This enhanced versatility is required for the project’s main application environments including
“transition media” such as mixtures of solids and fluids, gaseous and liquid, etc. Another aspect to be addressed thoroughly
by the project is the research on, and the conception of, advanced sensing systems for robots which enable are required for
operating in such extreme environments. Two types of robots will be researched and developed: one type for underwater
operations and another type for aerial operations. Six specific use cases will be targeted and a specific methodology will be
developed to serve the design and manufacturing the “ECOBOTICS Systems”. The methodology will establish a common
framework for design robots for persistent monitoring of environment. From there, 3 Common Prototypes will be developed,
and each one will be configured to respond to 2 use cases and demonstrated in realistic environments and operational
conditions. The consortium is composed by 6 European research institutes specialized in robotics, specialist in metamorphic
design, probabilistic computing and AI. Two large companies specialized in environmental assessment and 2 SMEs. The
partners distribution includes members from Germany, Austria, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Estonia.
ECOBOTICS is also closely affiliated with the European RISE project ECOBOTICS.SEA.
area. The vision of the ECOBOTICS project is to research completely novel approaches in Robotics, with special emphasis
on its use for the monitoring, protection and preservation of a variety of ecosystems and animal and plant species, which
occur in remote, unstructured domains with interface media. The project focus on the research, design and development of
robotic systems whose versatility is substantially increased by the incorporation of metamorphic design concepts that make
the robots reconfigurable. This enhanced versatility is required for the project’s main application environments including
“transition media” such as mixtures of solids and fluids, gaseous and liquid, etc. Another aspect to be addressed thoroughly
by the project is the research on, and the conception of, advanced sensing systems for robots which enable are required for
operating in such extreme environments. Two types of robots will be researched and developed: one type for underwater
operations and another type for aerial operations. Six specific use cases will be targeted and a specific methodology will be
developed to serve the design and manufacturing the “ECOBOTICS Systems”. The methodology will establish a common
framework for design robots for persistent monitoring of environment. From there, 3 Common Prototypes will be developed,
and each one will be configured to respond to 2 use cases and demonstrated in realistic environments and operational
conditions. The consortium is composed by 6 European research institutes specialized in robotics, specialist in metamorphic
design, probabilistic computing and AI. Two large companies specialized in environmental assessment and 2 SMEs. The
partners distribution includes members from Germany, Austria, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Estonia.
ECOBOTICS is also closely affiliated with the European RISE project ECOBOTICS.SEA.
At the beginning of the project a key moment was the kick-off workshop held in Lisbon, July 2020, following the initial online kick-off meeting earlier in the year. It provided a forum to share and exchange ideas, fostering future collaboration amongst the partners. Limiting the staff exchange between academia and companies was an initial hurdle, as the timing and opportunities we more limited. But when the staff exchange was to be ramped up, the covid pandemic hindered staff exchange. This ultimately lead to the project being put on hold by the commission, until it was back on track with the re-launch meeting in May 2022. Nevertheless, the partners were actively working all the time, and worked together on project proposals in related topics. Following the re-launch, the consortium was widened, adding partners that we had identified and key elements for a fruitful staff exchange. This has enabled restarting staff exchange secondments.
Due the issues indicated above, the progress beyond the state of the art is not directly coupled to the staff exchange, and is more local work by each partner, but the exchange of ideas and expertise is laying the seeds for future joint work. Until the end of the project we expect to contribute to the training of young researchers, publish joint work and have effective technology transfer to the partner companies, all contributing for a relevant socio-economic impact.