René Garello (Life Fellow – IMT Atlantique / IEEE OES), Christophe Maes (IRD), Philippe Courmontagne (Naval Group / IEEE OES)
Context
The Sea Tech Week (STW) conference is set every other even year in Brest, France. It has a very good relationship with OES, via an MOU we signed in 2009 for exchanging booths when OCEANS is in Europe (every other odd year) and helping develop sessions. This year STW (see at https://www.seatechweek.eu/) main theme was “Maritime transport: towards smarter and greener solutions”, and India was the featured country of honor. It was the opportunity to meet Dr. Atmanand who was the recent general chair of OCEANS 2022 in Chennai, India.
This year the OES French chapter organized two sessions during the conference:
“Marine Litter: Solutions for Monitoring, Mitigation and Prevention”, co-convened with the Laboratory for Ocean Physics and Satellite remote sensing (LOPS, https://www.umr-lops.fr/en), a joint unit between CNRS, Ifremer, IRD and UBO).
“Underwater noises: Understanding and Preventing it”, co-convened with Technopole Maritime du Québec (Canada) and Institut France-Québec Maritime (France-Canada)
Marine Litter Session
The session on Marine litter and Marine Debris was focused on solutions. Indeed, while quantitative information on production and use of plastics is somehow available, the amount and fate of plastics discarded or leaked into the environment is highly uncertain. In particular, knowledge of how much plastics, at different scales down to micro and nano levels, reaches the ocean and the pathways and fate of such plastic in the ocean remain poorly known.
A focus is needed on how science and technology could quantify the pervasiveness of marine pollution and facilitate an understanding of the mitigating impact of reducing the stock of plastics in the ocean. The goals for meeting such a challenge go through the determination of a strategy for monitoring marine litter in the ocean and develop solutions for addressing the problem.
To this extent, the session touched on the diverse pre-requisite for creating the knowledge on marine debris and plastic in the ocean needed by societal stakeholders. The following topics were addressed:
- Knowing where the pollution is and how much is observable.
- Where does it come from?
- Developing prevention and reducing the amount through adapted solutions.
The session ended with a Panel on Communication and Decision supports.
We had an attendance of 35+ all day long, and I’m proud to observe that, concerning the speakers, we had almost a Woman/Man parity. Here is the list of presentations, which will be available on the IEEE OES ‘Plastic in the Oceans’ Initiative website (https://www.gstss.org/2022_SeaTech/).
Session a: Knowing where and how much
‘Tools for the monitoring of micro and macro plastics at sea.’ Sébastien Smet, Actimar, Brest, France
‘WERA HF Radar to support monitoring of marine litter and pollutants.’ Thanh Huyen Tran, Helzel Messtechnik GmbH, Kaltenkirchen, Germany
‘Remote Sensing Spectral Visibility of Plastics under laboratory conditions.’ James Delaney, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, United Kingdom
‘Towards the use of the giant clam T.maxima, as a biological integrator of environmental contamination in French Polynesia.’ Irène Godéré, Université de la Polynésie Française, UMR 241 EIO, Tahiti, Polynésie Française
Session b: Where does it come from?
‘Quantifying the Use Chains of Plastics and the Sources of Plastic in the Ocean.’ Hans-Peter Plag, MARI, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA
‘Fish & Click: how participatory science helps to map and inventory lost fishing gear.’ Marie Morfin, IFREMER, Lorient, France
‘Towards a new decision support tool for marine litter monitoring in the eastern English Channel.’ Sloane Bertin, Laboratoire d’Océanologie et de Géosciences (LOG), UMR 8187, CNRS, ULCO, ULILLE, IRD, Wimereux, France
‘Deep Learning approaches to simulate Lagrangian particle dynamics at sea surface.’ Daria Botvynko, ENIB, UMR CNRS 6285 LabSTICC, Brest, France
‘Monitoring and modelling the circulation of marine debris in Indonesia.’ Christophe Maes, LOPS IRD Plouzane, France
Session c: Preventing and Reducing
‘Deep learning-based approaches to detect floating marine debris for reducing marine pollution.’ Ramnath Prabhu Bam, Indian Institute of Technology Goa, Ponda, Goa, India
‘Preventing Plastic Pollution – a catchment-based approach to reducing the stock of plastics in the ocean.’ John Iwan Jones, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK
‘An agent-based modelling approach for maritime plastic recovery optimization.’ Loic Salmon, Isen Yncrea Ouest Brest, France
Session d: Communication and Decision support / Panel session
‘Towards Mitigation of Marine Litter: Increasing Social Capital Through an Ecosystem of Virtual Community Centers for Marine Litter.’ Hans-Peter Plag, MARI Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA
Underwater Noise Session
In the past hundred years, the anthropogenic noise introduced into the marine environment has reached unprecedented levels. Effects of shipping noise on individuals and populations range from communication masking, behavioural disturbance. Production of stress hormones, etc. which consequently negatively affect both the animal individual fitness and population dynamics.
World maritime traffic has increased sharply in the 20th century. It has grown from about 30,000 ships in the 1950s to nearly 95,000 today. This increase in traffic has resulted in an increase in the underwater noise generated by ships and therefore in the overall oceanic ambient noise. The figure most put forward by the scientific community is an increase of 3 dB (doubling of the acoustic energy introduced) per decade.
Marine animals, marine mammals, fish, invertebrates and sea turtles have a hearing apparatus and are able to listen to sounds in the frequency range of traffic noise. While Canada and the European Union has recognized maritime traffic noise as a marine pollution, the scientific community has shown that maritime traffic noise has negative effects on wildlife, especially Canadian endangered cetaceans (orca, beluga, North Atlantic right whale, blue whale). Adverse effects include the masking of animal communications, behavioural disturbances and physiological reactions. To date, the scientific community does not know how to translate these effects into impacts on the life cycle of individuals and populations. However, in accordance with the precautionary principle, solutions are already being sought to limit the ambient noise caused by traffic by mitigating vessel underwater noise.
The two main sources of noise radiated by underwater vessels are machinery and propeller cavitation. The noise radiated by a ship is described by its acoustic signature, defined as the sound that would be heard by an ear placed at the standard distance of 1 meter from the vessel.
The scientific community has produced several databases of acoustic signatures, the analyses converge on two conclusions. First, the noise radiated by ships has a great dispersion. Secondly, the noisiest quarter of ships is responsible for 80 % of the sound energy injected into the water by maritime traffic.
The purpose of this dedicated session concerned, on the one hand, all the systems or methods enable to prevent or reduce the pressure of shipping Underwater Radiated Noise (URN) on the marine environment and, on the other hand, all the methods allowing the quantification of the URN level. The latest advances in marine acoustics research were presented: passive and active acoustics, impacts of anthropogenic noise on marine organisms (from invertebrates to marine mammals) and also at ecosystem level.
Among other presentations, two main projects were presented.
The MARS Project
The MARS (Marine Acoustic Research Station) project focuses on the noise radiated by ships. The objectives are (i) to measure the acoustic signatures of a representative sample of the St. Lawrence fleet, (ii) to understand the origins of this underwater noise, and (iii) to propose mitigations with the project’s partner shipowners that are acoustically efficient, compatible with the vessels’ operations and offer co-benefits such as a reduction in fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
The MARS project is co-led by the Institut des sciences de la mer de Rimouski (ISMER) of the Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR) and the Centre de recherche appliquée Innovation maritime (IMAR) with the support of MTE and OPDAQ as well as shipowners (ALGOMA, CSL, Desgagnés, FEDNAV). The project is financially supported by Transport Canada and the Ministère de l’Économie et l’Innovation du Québec. The principles of the MARS project are objectivity and scientific excellence.
The project is centered around the construction and deployment of a world-class acoustic station in the St. Lawrence Estuary, a vital area for cetaceans, near Rimouski compliant with ANSI/ASA S12.64 2009 standard. Four autonomous 3-hydrophone vertical arrays will make it possible to measure the ambient noise and underwater acoustic signature from vessels. This acoustic station will be operated 6 months annually — from May to November until 2023. Its position in the center of the two shipping lanes enables the measurement of the acoustic signatures of the candidate ships without them needing to divert significantly. Noise measurements can be done in less than 30 minutes.
The scientific program of the project is divided into 5 actions.
Action 1 concerns the acoustic station. It includes its design, annual deployment from May to November until 2023, maintenance and annual calibration.
Action 2 is dedicated to the measurement and interpretation of underwater radiated noise signatures. 150 to 250 signatures will be acquired per year according to the ANSI/ASA S12.64 2009 standard. These signatures are provided in near real time to the project’s partner shipowners. They serve as a support for a research activity to study the links between the acoustic signatures, the characteristics of the vessel and its conditions of operation and to optimize the measuring station by studying the relationship between the accuracy of the signatures and the complexity of the platform.
Action 3 is dedicated to the development, manufacture and installation of on-board instrumentation on ships to establish its vibratory and acoustic state.
Action 4 deploys the instruments on board partner ships, develops an analysis methodology and carries out vibration diagnostics (on up to 16 vessels).
Actions 3 and 4 follow steps of increasing complexity: test in the basin, test on ships at the dock, experiments on ships during operations especially during their passage in the acoustic station.
Action 5 synthesizes the knowledge produced from the MARS project to propose noise reduction solutions, and to implement them and measure their effectiveness. Action 5 addresses both the operating conditions (such as the speed of the ship) and maintenance (such as the condition of the propellers), the architecture of the ship (such as the vibration insulation of the machines). Action 5 searches for solutions that combine the reduction of underwater noise with other related benefits, such as the increase in comfort on board or the reduction of fuel consumption, in order to encourage the adoption of quiet technologies by shipowners.
The MARS project aligns with the Government of Canada’s priorities (Transport Canada (TC), Fisheries and Oceans Canada) regarding the protection of the oceans and its program to reduce disturbances caused by marine traffic and TC’s Quiet Vessel Initiative. It enables the development of research and innovation capabilities that are unique in Canada. It federates membership and attracts the support of domestic navigation professionals in Eastern Canada (Algoma, Canada Steamship Lines, Desgagnés, Fednav), as well as the Société de Développement Economique du Saint-Laurent (SODES).
The Project Life PIAQUO
The first one is the Project Life PIAQUO (Practical Implementation of Achieved QUieter Oceans). It is a European collaborative project aiming at reducing the issue of underwater noise and its impact on ecosystems.
Average level of noise in the most patronized seas has increased by about 20dB in the last 50 years.
The radiated noise of working and pleasure boats is the main factor in this growth of underwater noise. Marine areas with protected species and/or representing zones with major biological interests (reproduction, nursery, food…) are located nearby vessels’ routes. Recommendations were established to encourage underwater noise reduction generated by human activities and European regulation is going to oblige the establishment of ambitious actions in this field. The European project AQUO (FP7) has created tools to estimate the noise generated by maritime traffic and to realize noise cartographies.
The Project has 5 goals:
Goal 1: Demonstration on two types of ships of the possibility to reduce on existing ships the underwater radiated noise thanks to the integration of new optimized propellers focusing on fuel consumption and Underwater Radiated Noise (hereafter “URN”) reduction
Goal 2: Demonstration of a real time on board self-estimation system, measuring the URN generated by the ship and detecting ship’s own cavitation
Goal 3: Implementation and evaluation of proactive ships underwater noise radiation incentives together with a data collection of actual URN measured with buoy on a long period of time
Goal 4: Implementation and evaluation of a real time ship traffic adaptation to the surrounding ecosystem, together with a passive acoustic cartography for shallow and deep waters designed with drones, ships and fixed observatories
Goal 5: Creation of impact cartography together with a web service used as a decision-making tool for institutional and private sectors actors
The session
During the whole day several plenary talks and technical presentations were delivered in front of an attendance of 30+:
Plenary talk on ‘The acoustic world of silence’, Cedric Gervaise, Chorus acoustics, France
Plenary talk on ‘The project Life PIAQUO’, Eric Baudin, Bureau Veritas, France
‘SubSea Quieter® Pile Driving: a disruptive, low cost and highly efficient noise mitigation system’, Damien Demoor, GREENOV-ITES, France
‘PIAQUO: Practical Implementation of the European project AQUO’, Philippe Courmontagne, Naval Group, France
Illustration 4: Eric Baudin (Bureau Veritas) presenting PIAQUO
‘On the role of the tailored Green’s function within underwater radiated ship noise prediction’, Nicolas Trafny, Naval Group, France
‘SHIP URN: UNIGE activities in the context of LIFE-PIAQUO project’, Michele Viviani, Università degli studi di Genova, Italy
Plenary talk on ‘The Marine Acoustic Research Station (MARS) project: a unique infrastructure to determine the noise generated by ships and search for mitigation solutions’, Guillaume St-Onge and Sylvain Lafrance, ISMER-UQAR, Canada
Plenary talk on ‘MARS station: A real time long-term equipment to measure URN following the standard ISO/ASA’, Cedric Gervaise, Chorus acoustics, France
Illustration 5: Cedric Gervaise (Chorus acoustics) during his plenary talk
‘Assessment of the St. Lawrence soundscape at the MARS station’, Jeanne Merindol, ISMER-UQAR, Canada
‘Analysis of 36 URN signatures collected in 2021 with the MARS station’, Cedric Gervaise, Chorus acoustics, France
‘A specific development of inboard vibration and acoustics sensors to identify sources of URN’, Jean Christophe Gauthier Marquis, IMAR, Canada
‘Detection of cavitation from inboard measurements’, Kamal Kesour, IMAR, Canada
‘Silence of Global Oceans: Acoustic Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown’, Artash Nath, Monitor My Ocean, Canada
‘Underwater noises monitoring using DORI underwater acoustic recorders’, Caroline Magnier, ABYSSENS, France
‘Experimental study and control of a hydrofoil generating a tonal noise’, Paul François, Ecole Navale, France
Suleman Mazhar has been working as a professor in Information & Communication Engineering at Harbin Engineering University (China) since July 2019. He did PhD from Tokyo University (Japan) and postdoctorate from Georgetown University (Washington DC, USA). He had BS-CS from FAST-NUCES (Lahore) and MS from GIK Institute (Pakistan). He is TYSP young scientist fellow (Ministry of Science & Technology China) and have won several research grants from international organizations such as DAAD (Germany), ICIMOD (Nepal), NRPU (Higher Education Commission Pakistan), WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature) Pakistan. His research focus is deep learning and signal processing applications for environmental monitoring, with particular focus on underwater acoustics, and marine mammal conservation. He is a reviewer for professional journals such as Journal of Acoustical Society (America), IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, IEEE Sensors Journal, Applied Acoustics, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems.
Peng Ren is a full professor with the College of Oceanography and Space Informatics, China University of Petroleum (East China). He is the director of Qingdao International Research Center for Intelligent Forecast and Detection of Oceanic Catastrophes. He received the K. M. Scott Prize from the University of York, the Natural Science award (first rank) from China Institute of Electronics, and the Eduardo Caianiello Best Student Paper Award from 18th International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing as one co-author. He has served as an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.
Mohd Rizal Arshad is a full professor at the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Malaysia, where he specializes in ocean robotics technology and intelligent system. He received his B.Eng. in Medical Electronics & Instrumentation and PhD in Electronic Engineering from University of Liverpool, UK in 1994 and 1999, respectively. He completed his MSc. in Electronic Control Engineering from the University of Salford, UK in Dec 1995. He has supervised many postgraduate students and published extensively in local and international publications. He is a senior member of the IEEE, and was awarded IEEE OES Presidential Award in 2019.
Itzik Klein is an Assistant Professor, heading the Autonomous Navigation and Sensor Fusion Lab, at the Charney School of Marine Sciences, Hatter Department of Marine Technologies, University of Haifa. He is an IEEE Senior Member and a member of the IEEE Journal of Indoor and Seamless Positioning and Navigation (J-ISPIN) Editorial Board. Prior to joining the University of Haifa, he worked at leading companies in Israel on navigation topics for more than 15 years. He has a wide range of experience in navigation systems and sensor fusion from both industry and academic perspectives. His research interests lie in the intersection of artificial intelligence with inertial sensing, sensor fusion, and autonomous underwater vehicles.
John R. Potter (IEEE M’94, SM’02, F’18) graduated in the previous century with a joint honours Mathematics and Physics Degree from Bristol and a PhD. in Glaciology and Oceanography from Cambridge, UK studying Antarctic ice mass balance, where he spent four consecutive summers. This work helped underscore the non-linear fragility of polar ice to climate change and led to him receiving the Polar Medal from Queen Elizabeth II in 1988.
Nick is a Visiting Fellow at the UK National Oceanographic Center, Southampton His nomination was endorsed by the Underwater Acoustics Technology Committee. He had worked as a Research Associate and Lecturer at University of Birmingham and has been working as a Research Scientist at the Applied Research Laboratory, University of Texas, Austin. He has also served as a Program Officer at the Office of Naval Research Global. He is a senior member of IEEE (OES) and a Fellow of Acoustical Society of America (ASA). Nick has also been serving as Assoc. Editor for IEEE JoE and JASA. He is widely acknowledged for his expertise are seabed acoustics, parametric array modeling, sonar beamformer, underwater signal processing.
Maurizio Migliaccio (M’91-SM’00-F’17) is Full professor of Electromagnetics at Università di Napoli Parthenope (Italy) and was Affiliated Full Professor at NOVA Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL (USA). He has been teaching Microwave Remote Sensing since 1994. He was visiting scientist at Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fur Lüft und Raumfahrt (DLR), Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. He was member of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) scientific committee. He was member of the ASI CosmoSkyMed second generation panel. He was e-geos AdCom member. He was Italian delegate of the ESA PB-EO board. He was Member of South Africa Expert Review Panel for Space Exploration. He serves as reviewer for the UE, Italian Research Ministry (MIUR), NCST, Kazakhstan and Hong Kong Research board. He lectured in USA, Canada, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, Germany, Spain, Czech Republic, Switzerland and Italy. He was Italian delegate at UE COST SMOS Mode Action. He is listed in the Italian Top Scientists. He is an IEEE Trans. Geoscience and Remote Sensing AE, International Journal of Remote Sensing AE, and was IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering AE Special Issue on Radar for Marine and Maritime Remote Sensing, IEEE JSTARS AE of the Special Issue on CosmoSKyMed, Member of the Indian Journal of Radio & Space Physics Editorial board. His main current scientific interests cover SAR sea oil slick and man-made target monitoring, remote sensing for marine and coastal applications, remote sensing for agriculture monitoring, polarimetry, inverse problems for resolution enhancement, reverberating chambers. He published about 160 peer-reviewed journal papers on remote sensing and applied electromagnetics.
He has developed various types of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) and related application technologies including navigation methods, a new sensing method using a chemical sensor, precise seafloor mapping methods, a precise seabed positioning system with a resolution of a few centimeters, a new sensing system of the thickness of cobalt-rich crust; and more. He has shown, by using these technologies that AUVs are practicable and valuable tools for deep-sea exploration.
Donna Kocak has had an outstanding career in defense and scientific projects developing and applying solutions in subsea optics, imaging and robotics. She graduated with an M.Sc in Computer Science in 1997 from the University of Central Florida; an MBA in 2008 from the University of Florida; and M.Sc in Industrial Engineering in 2011 from the University of Central Florida. She is currently a Senior Scientist, Advanced Concepts Engineering, and Fellow at the Harris Corporation in Melbourne, Florida, where she has developed novel optical imaging and communication solutions for under-sea defense and scientific projects. Prior to 2008 Donna Kocak was Founder and President of Green Sky Imaging, LLC (GSI) who developed laser/video photogrammetry software for underwater inspection and survey. Her earlier career positions were with Naval Training Systems Center, Florida; Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, Florida; eMerge Interactive; and the Advanced Technologies Group in Florida.
John Potter has a Joint Honours degree in Mathematics and Physics from Bristol University in the UK and a PhD in Glaciology and Oceanography from the University of Cambridge on research in the Antarctic, for which he was awarded the Polar Medal in 1988. John has worked on polar oceanography, underwater acoustics, ambient noise (including imaging), marine mammals, communications, IoUT, autonomous vehicles and strategic development. He has 40 years’ international experience working at the British Antarctic Survey in the UK, NATO in Italy, SIO in California, NUS in Singapore and most recently at NTNU in Norway. John is a Fellow of the IEEE and MTS, an Associate Editor for the IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, IEEE OES Distinguished Lecturer, PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer & an International Fellow of the Explorer’s Club.
Dr. James V. Candy is the Chief Scientist for Engineering and former Director of the Center for Advanced Signal & Image Sciences at the University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dr. Candy received a commission in the USAF in 1967 and was a Systems Engineer/Test Director from 1967 to 1971. He has been a Researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory since 1976 holding various positions including that of Project Engineer for Signal Processing and Thrust Area Leader for Signal and Control Engineering. Educationally, he received his B.S.E.E. degree from the University of Cincinnati and his M.S.E. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida, Gainesville. He is a registered Control System Engineer in the state of California. He has been an Adjunct Professor at San Francisco State University, University of Santa Clara, and UC Berkeley, Extension teaching graduate courses in signal and image processing. He is an Adjunct Full-Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Candy is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and elected as a Life Member (Fellow) at the University of Cambridge (Clare Hall College). He is a member of Eta Kappa Nu and Phi Kappa Phi honorary societies. He was elected as a Distinguished Alumnus by the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Candy received the IEEE Distinguished Technical Achievement Award for the “development of model-based signal processing in ocean acoustics.” Dr. Candy was selected as a IEEE Distinguished Lecturer for oceanic signal processing as well as presenting an IEEE tutorial on advanced signal processing available through their video website courses. He was nominated for the prestigious Edward Teller Fellowship at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dr. Candy was awarded the Interdisciplinary Helmholtz-Rayleigh Silver Medal in Signal Processing/Underwater Acoustics by the Acoustical Society of America for his technical contributions. He has published over 225 journal articles, book chapters, and technical reports as well as written three texts in signal processing, “Signal Processing: the Model-Based Approach,” (McGraw-Hill, 1986), “Signal Processing: the Modern Approach,” (McGraw-Hill, 1988), “Model-Based Signal Processing,” (Wiley/IEEE Press, 2006) and “Bayesian Signal Processing: Classical, Modern and Particle Filtering” (Wiley/IEEE Press, 2009). He was the General Chairman of the inaugural 2006 IEEE Nonlinear Statistical Signal Processing Workshop held at the Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge. He has presented a variety of short courses and tutorials sponsored by the IEEE and ASA in Applied Signal Processing, Spectral Estimation, Advanced Digital Signal Processing, Applied Model-Based Signal Processing, Applied Acoustical Signal Processing, Model-Based Ocean Acoustic Signal Processing and Bayesian Signal Processing for IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society/ASA. He has also presented short courses in Applied Model-Based Signal Processing for the SPIE Optical Society. He is currently the IEEE Chair of the Technical Committee on “Sonar Signal and Image Processing” and was the Chair of the ASA Technical Committee on “Signal Processing in Acoustics” as well as being an Associate Editor for Signal Processing of ASA (on-line JASAXL). He was recently nominated for the Vice Presidency of the ASA and elected as a member of the Administrative Committee of IEEE OES. His research interests include Bayesian estimation, identification, spatial estimation, signal and image processing, array signal processing, nonlinear signal processing, tomography, sonar/radar processing and biomedical applications.
Kenneth Foote is a Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from The George Washington University in 1968, and a Ph.D. in Physics from Brown University in 1973. He was an engineer at Raytheon Company, 1968-1974; postdoctoral scholar at Loughborough University of Technology, 1974-1975; research fellow and substitute lecturer at the University of Bergen, 1975-1981. He began working at the Institute of Marine Research, Bergen, in 1979; joined the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1999. His general area of expertise is in underwater sound scattering, with applications to the quantification of fish, other aquatic organisms, and physical scatterers in the water column and on the seafloor. In developing and transitioning acoustic methods and instruments to operations at sea, he has worked from 77°N to 55°S.
René Garello, professor at Télécom Bretagne, Fellow IEEE, co-leader of the TOMS (Traitements, Observations et Méthodes Statistiques) research team, in Pôle CID of the UMR CNRS 3192 Lab-STICC.
Professor Mal Heron is Adjunct Professor in the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, and is CEO of Portmap Remote Ocean Sensing Pty Ltd. His PhD work in Auckland, New Zealand, was on radio-wave probing of the ionosphere, and that is reflected in his early ionospheric papers. He changed research fields to the scattering of HF radio waves from the ocean surface during the 1980s. Through the 1990s his research has broadened into oceanographic phenomena which can be studied by remote sensing, including HF radar and salinity mapping from airborne microwave radiometers . Throughout, there have been one-off papers where he has been involved in solving a problem in a cognate area like medical physics, and paleobiogeography. Occasionally, he has diverted into side-tracks like a burst of papers on the effect of bushfires on radio communications. His present project of the Australian Coastal Ocean Radar Network (ACORN) is about the development of new processing methods and applications of HF radar data to address oceanography problems. He is currently promoting the use of high resolution VHF ocean radars, based on the PortMap high resolution radar.
Hanu Singh graduated B.S. ECE and Computer Science (1989) from George Mason University and Ph.D. (1995) from MIT/Woods Hole.He led the development and commercialization of the Seabed AUV, nine of which are in operation at other universities and government laboratories around the world. He was technical lead for development and operations for Polar AUVs (Jaguar and Puma) and towed vehicles(Camper and Seasled), and the development and commercialization of the Jetyak ASVs, 18 of which are currently in use. He was involved in the development of UAS for polar and oceanographic applications, and high resolution multi-sensor acoustic and optical mapping with underwater vehicles on over 55 oceanographic cruises in support of physical oceanography, marine archaeology, biology, fisheries, coral reef studies, geology and geophysics and sea-ice studies. He is an accomplished Research Student advisor and has made strong collaborations across the US (including at MIT, SIO, Stanford, Columbia LDEO) and internationally including in the UK, Australia, Canada, Korea, Taiwan, China, Japan, India, Sweden and Norway. Hanu Singh is currently Chair of the IEEE Ocean Engineering Technology Committee on Autonomous Marine Systems with responsibilities that include organizing the biennial IEEE AUV Conference, 2008 onwards. Associate Editor, IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, 2007-2011. Associate editor, Journal of Field Robotics 2012 onwards.
Milica Stojanovic graduated from the University of Belgrade, Serbia, in 1988, and received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Northeastern University in Boston, in 1991 and 1993. She was a Principal Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in 2008 joined Northeastern University, where she is currently a Professor of electrical and computer engineering. She is also a Guest Investigator at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Milica’s research interests include digital communications theory, statistical signal processing and wireless networks, and their applications to underwater acoustic systems. She has made pioneering contributions to underwater acoustic communications, and her work has been widely cited. She is a Fellow of the IEEE, and serves as an Associate Editor for its Journal of Oceanic Engineering (and in the past for Transactions on Signal Processing and Transactions on Vehicular Technology). She also serves on the Advisory Board of the IEEE Communication Letters, and chairs the IEEE Ocean Engineering Society’s Technical Committee for Underwater Communication, Navigation and Positioning. Milica is the recipient of the 2015 IEEE/OES Distinguished Technical Achievement Award.
Dr. Paul C. Hines was born and raised in Glace Bay, Cape Breton. From 1977-1981 he attended Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, graduating with a B.Sc. (Hon) in Engineering-Physics.