Periodic Reporting for period 2 - GROOM II (Gliders for Research, Ocean Observations and Management: Infrastructure and Innovation)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-04-01 al 2024-03-31
Underwater and surface marine autonomous systems (MAS), especially underwater gliders, have been pivotal in supporting environmental observations and blue economy activities since their emergence in the 2000s. These agile and cost-efficient vehicles can carry scientific payloads on the surface and at depths of up to 6,000 metres. To exploit the full benefits of these assets, their users and operators need to be supported by an infrastructure capable of delivering services that meet the broad spectrum of user requirements - from marine research and surveillance to utilities and industrial needs.
As the EU landscape is shifting towards more autonomy, MAS will, and already do in some cases, play a central role in the future of ocean observing. To ensure the massive uptake of MAS in Europe, GROOM RI will maintain a unique centralised provision of cyberinfrastructure, data and knowledge for the optimised use of MAS to study climate and marine environments, and to support operational services and the blue economy.
GROOM II overall objective is to design a sustainable European marine research infrastructure (RI), namely GROOM RI, which, through the services it provides, supports scientific research of excellence, supports operators of observation systems, encourages innovation and supports the blue economy by establishing public and industrial partnerships.
Objective 1 “GROOM RI is fit-for-purpose” concerns the coordination of MAS activities with organisations and other entities at European and global level, ensuring the coordination of research and observation activities, and the provision of the necessary services tailored to the needs of all organisations operating MAS directly or which activity depends directly on MAS data.
Objective 2 “GROOM RI delivers high-performance services” concerns the development and supply of these services, which guarantee economies of scale and overall objectives that can only be achieved through the integration of these services, as well as the development and provision of access to all the numerous technological developments affecting the MAS sector in the coming years, so as to ensure that the activity of MAS users can evolve easily in the face of the wall of innovation.
Objective 3 “GROOM RI ensures high quality data production and good access to data” focuses on the role of GROOM RI in guaranteeing that the quality of the data obtained from the MAS is maintained and that it flows seamlessly into the ‘data lake’. This objective may seem implicit, but faced with the massive and very rapid transformation of the world of data in MS and in Europe, particularly its technical structuring and organisation, it is essential that GROOM RI can support its users to ensure that their data meets the required standards and that they can remain agile in the face of the challenges posed by these transformations.
As the EU landscape is shifting towards more autonomy, MAS will, and already do in some cases, play a central role in the future of ocean observing. To ensure the massive uptake of MAS in Europe, GROOM RI will maintain a unique centralised provision of cyberinfrastructure, data and knowledge for the optimised use of MAS to study climate and marine environments, and to support operational services and the blue economy.
GROOM II overall objective is to design a sustainable European marine research infrastructure (RI), namely GROOM RI, which, through the services it provides, supports scientific research of excellence, supports operators of observation systems, encourages innovation and supports the blue economy by establishing public and industrial partnerships.
Objective 1 “GROOM RI is fit-for-purpose” concerns the coordination of MAS activities with organisations and other entities at European and global level, ensuring the coordination of research and observation activities, and the provision of the necessary services tailored to the needs of all organisations operating MAS directly or which activity depends directly on MAS data.
Objective 2 “GROOM RI delivers high-performance services” concerns the development and supply of these services, which guarantee economies of scale and overall objectives that can only be achieved through the integration of these services, as well as the development and provision of access to all the numerous technological developments affecting the MAS sector in the coming years, so as to ensure that the activity of MAS users can evolve easily in the face of the wall of innovation.
Objective 3 “GROOM RI ensures high quality data production and good access to data” focuses on the role of GROOM RI in guaranteeing that the quality of the data obtained from the MAS is maintained and that it flows seamlessly into the ‘data lake’. This objective may seem implicit, but faced with the massive and very rapid transformation of the world of data in MS and in Europe, particularly its technical structuring and organisation, it is essential that GROOM RI can support its users to ensure that their data meets the required standards and that they can remain agile in the face of the challenges posed by these transformations.
The consortium has considered a set of use cases to better understand how to link the services of the future distributed marine research infrastructure. Internal work consisted in developing the structure of the future distributed RI, meaning that a ‘central hub’ will coordinate the ‘nodes’, harmonise and optimise operations, serving as an entry point to MAS activities in Europe. By developing solutions to increase the MAS deployment capacities, the GROOM II partners will be able to provide data that will break down present barriers in marine environment observation.
GROOM RI’s digital infrastructure will allow for complex piloting activities, minimising human supervision of the system with automation and AI. In this scenario, the project develops a framework that enables interoperability at all levels, creating standards for data formats and quality so it can be assimilated and exploited.
This involves better monitoring for EU climate goals and marine policies, emergency response to disasters such as oil spills or harmful algal blooms, and other needs from the blue economy sectors. For instance, a potential use of GROOM RI will be to improve ocean forecasts, increasing observational and forecasting capabilities with a minimum increase of carbon footprint. Other potential contributions of the project’s research network include monitoring of biodiversity and biogeochemistry, response to emergency situations and discovery science as well as different international initiatives related to ocean observing.
To engage industrial users and create synergies, the Industry Advisory Group for Marine Autonomous Systems (IAG-MAS) has been set up. IAG-MAS brings together leaders from over 20 organisations that specialise in manufacturing marine autonomous platforms and marine sensors as well as maritime service providers. The IAG-MAS provides support regarding the existing and/or new services to be delivered through the RI. This group discusses what are the needs that GROOM RI could fill and how could RIs and industry merge and collaborate.
The future RI will fill the gaps of the already existing Marine Infrastructure landscape and the objective is to avoid duplication and enhance collaboration. After an extensive review of that landscape, effort has been made to assess where GROOM RI would be most beneficial and efficient. To this intent, GROOM II initiated cooperation with other MRI-related projects for the general purpose of:
-Sharing experiences and best practices on data interoperability and metadata standardisation
-Improving access to MAS for research and innovation purposes
-Developing MAS calibration and operational services for both Parties’ members and users
-Organising joint training activities based on the common requirements of the members and users of both Parties.
Finally, GROOM II has carried out outreach activities targeted to different stakeholders (scientific community, decision-makers, general public, etc) to demonstrate the value to shift toward massive autonomy for ocean observing. To achieve this, GROOM II has shown how the automation of the workflow management of operations, metadata and data, which is essential if GROOM RI is to offer its users and other stakeholders services tailored to the collection and integration of MAS data for the broad spectrum of these users' needs.
GROOM RI’s digital infrastructure will allow for complex piloting activities, minimising human supervision of the system with automation and AI. In this scenario, the project develops a framework that enables interoperability at all levels, creating standards for data formats and quality so it can be assimilated and exploited.
This involves better monitoring for EU climate goals and marine policies, emergency response to disasters such as oil spills or harmful algal blooms, and other needs from the blue economy sectors. For instance, a potential use of GROOM RI will be to improve ocean forecasts, increasing observational and forecasting capabilities with a minimum increase of carbon footprint. Other potential contributions of the project’s research network include monitoring of biodiversity and biogeochemistry, response to emergency situations and discovery science as well as different international initiatives related to ocean observing.
To engage industrial users and create synergies, the Industry Advisory Group for Marine Autonomous Systems (IAG-MAS) has been set up. IAG-MAS brings together leaders from over 20 organisations that specialise in manufacturing marine autonomous platforms and marine sensors as well as maritime service providers. The IAG-MAS provides support regarding the existing and/or new services to be delivered through the RI. This group discusses what are the needs that GROOM RI could fill and how could RIs and industry merge and collaborate.
The future RI will fill the gaps of the already existing Marine Infrastructure landscape and the objective is to avoid duplication and enhance collaboration. After an extensive review of that landscape, effort has been made to assess where GROOM RI would be most beneficial and efficient. To this intent, GROOM II initiated cooperation with other MRI-related projects for the general purpose of:
-Sharing experiences and best practices on data interoperability and metadata standardisation
-Improving access to MAS for research and innovation purposes
-Developing MAS calibration and operational services for both Parties’ members and users
-Organising joint training activities based on the common requirements of the members and users of both Parties.
Finally, GROOM II has carried out outreach activities targeted to different stakeholders (scientific community, decision-makers, general public, etc) to demonstrate the value to shift toward massive autonomy for ocean observing. To achieve this, GROOM II has shown how the automation of the workflow management of operations, metadata and data, which is essential if GROOM RI is to offer its users and other stakeholders services tailored to the collection and integration of MAS data for the broad spectrum of these users' needs.
GROOM II provided to the funding bodies and decision makers an extensive description of a long-term vision of the funding required to build, operate, adapt and sustain the GROOM RI and the services it will provide.
By developing solutions to increase the deployment capabilities of MAS, the project has demonstrated that GROOM RI will be able to provide services that will break down current barriers in methods of observing the marine environment. This involves improving the monitoring capabilities of European ocean observation operators for EOOS and GOOS, including the MSFD's objectives for good environmental status.
GROOM II has designed services that will require less personnel at sea and less time working in high-risk environments, which could unlock ocean agencies and research organisations' ability to cover the massive observation needs of all users. It also reduces the carbon footprint and pollution of observations.
The shared vision of GROOM RI and the work carried out during GROOM II then led to a new project, called AMRIT, "Advance Marine Research Infrastructures Together", which aims to be the cornerstone of the EOOS with the creation of a Technical Support Centre to support the EOOS operators in charge of observations.
By developing solutions to increase the deployment capabilities of MAS, the project has demonstrated that GROOM RI will be able to provide services that will break down current barriers in methods of observing the marine environment. This involves improving the monitoring capabilities of European ocean observation operators for EOOS and GOOS, including the MSFD's objectives for good environmental status.
GROOM II has designed services that will require less personnel at sea and less time working in high-risk environments, which could unlock ocean agencies and research organisations' ability to cover the massive observation needs of all users. It also reduces the carbon footprint and pollution of observations.
The shared vision of GROOM RI and the work carried out during GROOM II then led to a new project, called AMRIT, "Advance Marine Research Infrastructures Together", which aims to be the cornerstone of the EOOS with the creation of a Technical Support Centre to support the EOOS operators in charge of observations.