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.