MERLIN

The importance of our seas and oceans for the economy and social well-being is widely recognized. Additionally, offshore infrastructures, such as ports, wind farms, aquaculture facilities, gas pipelines, and others, have been expanding steadily, becoming widespread in recent years. Activities related to seabed mapping, monitoring the health and condition of marine habitats, inspecting offshore infrastructures, seabed mining, and underwater detection have traditionally relied on the use of manned support vessels, which are expensive to operate and have limited autonomy.

The MERLIN project aims to leverage the long-autonomy capabilities offered by hydrogen fuel cells and renewable energy sources installed on Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) and Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs). These vehicles are capable of autonomous navigation and operation based on artificial intelligence algorithms, without the need for human intervention. A Mission Remote Control Center (MRCC) will enable data transmission from the autonomous vehicles to the base. Conversely, the MRCC will allow supervisors to send commands to the robotic vehicles.

The vehicles will incorporate advanced capabilities for collecting samples both on the water surface and underwater, as well as capabilities for handling, deploying, and retrieving sensors using custom robotic arms. The USV will provide georeferenced data to the AUVs during underwater operations and will be able to track them throughout the mission. The USV will have the capability to navigate from its base to the mission area, where it will deploy the AUVs. At the end of the mission, the AUVs will re-dock with the USV to safely return to the base. The vehicles will be able to operate independently and in combination with support vessels.

Demonstration activities include three different high-value use cases: monitoring marine habitats, mapping the seabed of underwater volcanoes, and inspecting port infrastructures.

CERTH participates in the project with one institute: the Information Technologies Institute (ITI). Within the MERLIN project, CERTH-ITI leads activities related to data management, knowledge extraction, and actively participates in the development of autonomous navigation algorithms for both AUVs and USVs, as well as for robotic arms. Specifically, CERTH-ITI is responsible for designing Situational Awareness systems for mission selection (T5.2), enabling data fusion from multiple sources to identify complex situations in real time, as well as for developing quality assurance mechanisms at the edge (T6.1) to ensure the reliability and efficiency of decentralized data processing. Furthermore, it leads semantic knowledge extraction (T6.3), utilizing artificial intelligence and machine learning for data analysis and supporting vehicle decision-making.

Consortium

THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM (UoB), England
SPACE APPLICATIONS SERVICES NV (SPACEAPPS), Belgium
GRAAL TECH SRL (GT), Italy
ALTUS LSA EMPORIKI KATASKEVASTIKI – IDIOTIKI EPICHEIRISI PAROCHIS YPIRESION ASFALEIAS – ANONYMI ETAIREIA A.E. (ALTUS), Greece
UNIVERSIDAD DE CASTILLA – LA MANCHA (UCLM), Spain
ON AIR S.R.L. (ON AIR S.R.L.), Italy
HYSYTECH SRL (HYSYTECH), Italy
NATIONAL CENTER FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH “DEMOKRITOS” (NCSR “D”), Greece
AIDEAS OU (AIDEAS OU), Estonia
ETHNIKO KENTRO EREVNAS KAI TECHNOLOGIKIS ANAPTYXIS (CERTH), Greece
ENGITEC SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL LIMITED (ESI), Cyprus
AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS (CSIC), Spain
AKCINE BENDROVE KLAIPEDOS VALSTYBINIO JURU UOSTO DIREKCIJA (KPA), Lithuania
TUCO YACHT VAERFT APS (TUCO), Denmark
UNIVERSITAT POLITECNICA DE CATALUNYA (UPC), Spain
HELLENIC CENTRE FOR MARINE RESEARCH (HCMR), Greece
UAB ACRUX CYBER SERVICES (ACRUXCS), Lithuania
MC BALTICS UAB (MCBALTICS), Lithuania