Technology Enabler for Internet of Underwater Things Applications

Project Information

TEUTA

Grant agreement ID: 957008

DOI

10.3030/957008

Project closed

EC signature date 15 September 2020

Start date 1 October 2020

End date 31 March 2022

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 102 225,00

Coordinated by

H2O ROBOTICS DOO ZA USLUGE
Croatia

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TEUTA (Technology Enabler for Internet of Underwater Things Applications)

Reporting period: 2020-10-01 to 2022-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The new technology objectives of the projects were: 1) to expand our product portfolio with a new product, Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT) product, and 2) to expand the application portfolio of our existing products. The envisaged innovation idea of the H2O robotics is the full Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT) system created by lightweight, low-cost acoustic devices that link underwater network with terrestrial networks. IoUT system would provide positioning of underwater agents (e.g. sensors, vehicles, divers) and simultaneous communication between users on land and the underwater agents/things. The Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT) is a novel class of IoT, dened as the network of smart interconnected underwater objects. Extension of the IoT concept to marine domain provides the missing tools for unprecedented monitoring & exploration of marine environments. The conclusion of the project is that one of the H2O Robotics prototype device H2Observe (low-cost acoustic device) was designed as a wrist wearable unit that can be carried by divers and it was made compatible with Garmin underwater watch. This enables divers to send and receive messages from the surface while working on complex underwater tasks. This increases both diver safety as well as enables diving supervisors to monitor and be involved with the diving operations. The second conclusion is that the H2Observe electronics was augmented with terrestrial IoT communication electronics enabling the IoUT capability. This combined package was packaged into an innovative custom made surface buoy and a new product H2Orbit smart water buoy was created. This innovation project impacts the society by allowing the communication and localization of any underwater asset, either stationary assets used for marking underwater sites such as fishing equipment or archeological sites or for tracking moving underwater agents such as autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) or divers.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The IA integration objectives of the project were: 1) to work on a cutting-edge research project in marine technology; 2) to participate in project management and product development & commercialization; 3) to advance skills in market and IPR analyses; 4) to learn fundamentals of sales and marketing; 5) to work in a highly multidisciplinary team. Vladimir Djapic, IA selected for this project, is an accomplished scientist and manager with over 20 years of experience in marine technology and autonomous vehicles. Vladimir completed all the targeted training programme organized by H2O robotics and a core training programme on industrial innovation and business management provided by EU. Vladimir completed all the assigned objectives by first getting familiar with the innovation: learn about idea, technology behind and current state of development. Next, Vladimir worked on exploring the market: analysis of competitors, IPR opportunities and risks, end-users needs, possible new applications. Finally, together with the H2O Robotics team Vladimir created the innovation project: tuned the innovation development according to market assessment, IPR protection, co-development of the business plan. In addition, the IA gained international industry experience by cooperating with H2O robotics industrial partners and customers. Vladimir participated in the Marine Technology related courses at the University which were organized as the university courses as well as lecture series in conjunction with EU projects that LABUST in participating in, for example, INNOVAMARE EU project (https://innovamare.org/).
The Innovation Project task was accomplished by building on the results of the previous task by developing strategies for three main pillars of innovation business: intellectual property, market and finances, contributing to the final result, the “innovation project”. This task resulted in the prototype of the IoUT concept which consists of a smart water buoy that enables above water radio communication with the cloud and below water acoustic communication with one or more underwater nodes. The system, enables the communication and localization of the underwater assets from anywhere in the world.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

By turning our innovation idea of the full Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT) into an innovation project we gradually expanded our product portfolio with a new product, IoUT product, as well as expanded the application portfolio of our existing products. To our knowledge, such a complete system consisting of smart low cost buoys equipped with software and hardware with both underwater and terrestrial communication capabilities together with underwater communication devices (H2Observe for more general and H2Orologio for diver applications) does not exist on the market. Thus, project TEUTA enabled us to arrive to beyond the state of the art product for marine applications. Therefore, expected impact of the innovation project was achieved. In addition to diving operations the newly created IoUT system can be used as coastal water environmental monitoring system. Water quality measurements from water quality sensors can be sent to the cloud and become underwater IoT devices. This expanded the application portfolio of our products. This has a huge market potential. Example of societal problem that at the same time represents business opportunity. Observations of the European coastal ocean is absolutely required for meeting societal needs such as to assess global change, to estimate the impacts of natural and anthropogenic changes, to evaluate and monitor environmental risks for a large variety of hazards (e.g. physical, chemical, biological) and for different spatial scales (from a single beach to a whole ecosystem). Number of EC strategies and directives recognized this need. According to the EU Water Framework Directive underwater environmental monitoring is obligatory to all EU member states. Project TEUTA was successful in the creation of affordable tools and technologies for underwater environmental monitoring.

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H2Orbit smart buoy

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underwater IoT system

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