Dr. Laura Piho 

Underwater platforms, like robots, drones and measurement stations, are being used more and

more to monitor the ocean. These systems help researchers collect important environmental

data in hard-to-reach areas as well as monitor underwater infrastructures, supporting important

efforts in areas such as climate change research, protection of marine ecosystems, and

improving coastal safety. There are increased research efforts on making these systems faster,

more reliable, and able to operate on their own. One of the central challenges of these

underwater platforms is related to mission planning in rapidly changing conditions of the

underwater environment through local wave climate, tides, and ocean currents. These

conditions can shift quickly, making it difficult to predict safe and efficient times for the systems

to operate. Without accurate, up-to-date information, missions may be delayed, shortened, or

even fail due to unexpected underwater hazards. The proposed ORCA-OPS project aims to tackle

this issue by combining already existing regional model data and direct field measurements. The

goal of the project is to provide detailed information about ocean currents in real time in highly

localized areas to help make autonomous marine systems safer, more energy efficient, and

increase success of data collection in changing conditions.