CMRE will host the Student Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Challenge - Europe competition for the fourth time in a row. The dates are June 28 – July 05, 2013. SAUC-E '13 will be the first edition to let students teams fully including second autonomous underwater or surface robots as collaborators to accomplish the challenge mission tasks.

Dirk Tielbuerger, CMRE Director, has been invited to give a keynote talk at the event UDT (Undersea Defence Technology) Europe to be held in Hamburg (Germany) from 18 to 20 June 2013. On 19 June, CMRE Director will present the Centre's view on "What does the future hold for the world's most inhospitable environment?" in a plenary session together with John-Mikal Stordal (Director of Norwegian FFI), Michel Accary (Senior Vice President Technology, DCNS Group) and Kevin Peppe (Vice President Seapower Systems, Raytheon).  This panel, chaired by Capt. Raimund Wallner (German Navy), will focus on new technology, contested areas, emerging challenges, opportunities and their implications for the security of the underwater domain.

CMRE hosted the 2nd Workshop on Sensing the Ocean with Marine Radar (SOMaR-2) from 5 to 7 June 2013 in Lerici (Italy). In 2011, the first workshop on Sensing the Ocean with Marine Radar (SOMaR-1) concentrated on the scientific aspects of marine radar ocean applications and provided a forum for researchers to present and discuss their results, exchange data and algorithms, and identify priorities for future research. SOMaR-2 continued this series of interactive workshops on the state-of-the-art in marine radar development, focusing on possible consensus regarding approaches, issues, and validation.

"Big data from Space" was an event organized by the European Space Agency in Frascati (Italy) to address the barriers that limit the use of the large volumes of Earth observation data. From 5 to 7 June international experts discussed contemporary and historical Earth observations, either space-based or from the ground (including ubiquitous information-sensing mobile devices, aerial sensory technologies, wireless sensor networks). CMRE was invited to speak about experiences and lessons learned related to Big Data Challenges in the Maritime Domain. Maritime Security Programme Manager Karna Bryan gave the talk.

MASTEurope 2013, in Gdansk (Poland) from 4 to 6 June 2013, hosted two CMRE presentations on the Centre's capabilities. In particular, the scientist Kevin LePage and the engineer Robert Been spoke about autonomous offboard multistatic active antisubmarine warfare (ASW) network research, experimentation, and demonstration, which is a very promising scientific direction. The CMRE Chief Scientist Ed Gough also gave a presentation.

CMRE participated in the exposition "Ricerca & Innovazione Tecnologic@" at Capitaneria di Porto (Molo Italia), in La Spezia (Italy), organized by the Naval Support and Experimentation Centre (CSSN) of the Italian Navy. The initiative was part of the 26th Mariperman Trophy calendar of events. In the exhibit, CMRE past and current ROV capabilities were displayed (including the robot Filippo here shown in an historical photo) to the general public. In addition, a CMRE team competed on 7 and 8 June in the second edition of the CSSN Sailing Trophy open to scientific research centres onboard J24.

CMRE was invited to participate in the "Ocean Challenges and Opportunities" conference held in Porto (Portugal) from 13 to 17 May 2013. João Alves, CMRE Senior Scientist of the Cooperative Anti-Submarine Warfare program and Project Leader of MORPH (Marine robotic system of self-organizing, logically linked physical nodes) spoke about standards and interoperability in the maritime research field. The conference aimed to bring together world-class specialists to discuss technological and organizational challenges for global ocean sustainability and stewardship, including harnessing trends in the interoperability and standardization of networked robotic sensor and communication systems.

Ed Gough, CMRE Chief Scientist, gave a keynote talk at the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society (OES) Italian Chapter inaugural meeting, held at the Engineering Faculty of the University of Genoa on 30 January 2013.
Dr Gough took the opportunity to outline the changes and structure of the new CMRE to OES members and students, inviting them to professionally engage with the Centre.

CMRE was invited to brief the NATO SENT about the NavTronic European project on 22 January 2013. SENT is the Smart Energy Team created by NATO to report on activities related to smart energy and stimulate shared expertise and collaboration in research and development. The meeting focused on NavTronic approach to energy-saving for the shipping industry.

The ARGOMARINE EU Project demo and final conference entitled "New Strategies and Technologies for the Safety of Navigation in the Mediterranean Sea" will be held in Elba Island, 19-21 November 2012.  As part of the 'Automatic Oil spill Recognition and Geopositioning integrated in a Marine Monitoring Network' Consortium, the NATO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) will participate featuring its "Area Access Surveillance Technologies" developed in the Project time frame (2009-2012).

CMRE participated for the first time in the Science Festival 2012. Three scientists presented cutting-edge research and technology in underwater communication, ocean exploration and counter-piracy.
The event was held in Genoa (Italy), at Palazzo Ducale-Sala del Maggior Consiglio and Sala del Minor Consiglio from 31 October to 2 November 2012.
Download the press release for the complete programme.

CMRE participated in the 4th International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications (VS-Games2012), which was held in Genoa, 29-31 October 2012. Two works were presented: "Survey on Serious Games applied to security, safety and crisis management. User requirements, present solutions and envisaged possible improvements" by Alessandra Tesei, Alessandra Barbieri and Ron Kessel; and "Accuracy Requirements for Physical Models in Serious Games" by Alessandra Tesei and Ron Kessel.

Annual NATO Public Affairs Conference was held at CMRE from 24 to 27 September 2012. The agenda included Chicago Summit outcomes with broad introduction to the new NATO Command Structure with its impact on PA, looking upon NATO PA resources, its development and deployability, and discussing social media. The event was hosted by Allied Command Operation's Public Affairs Office and co-sponsored by both Allied Command Transformation's Public Affairs Office and Science and Technology Organization.

Underwater Communications: Channel Modelling & Validation conference, organised by CMRE, aims to bring together the key researchers in the UW communications field to present the state-of-the-art in UW communications technologies and to set the stage for agreeing on some benchmark problems and models that can be used to equitably evaluate different coding schemes and protocols. It was held on 12-14 September 2012 with a smaller workshop (by invitation) following on 17-18 September with the goal of producing a white paper with recommendations in these areas. For more: www.ucomms.net .

The MORPH (Marine Robotic System of Self-Organizing, Logically Linked Physical Nodes) project first plenary meeting was hosted by CMRE on 10 and 11 July 2012. Funded by the 7th Framework Programme European Commission, it was linked to SAUC-E 2012 edition providing a series of lectures that would reflect the state of the art and the vision of it. There will be planned, then, future actions and first project trials to take place in the Azores.

SAUC-Europe (Student Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Challenge – Europe) washosted for the third time by the Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) from 6 to 13 July 2012. For one week, 15 teams of students, coming from 12 Universities, competed and tested their autonomous underwater vehicles at the CMRE waterfront in La Spezia (Italy). For more visit: www.sauc-europe.org .

Harbour Protection Table-Top Exercise (HTP2E) was held at the NATO Undersea Research Centre (NURC) from 20 to 23 March 2012. It consisted of dynamic engagements played in the NURC OpenSea Maritime Tactical Theatre Simulator. The aim was to illustrate the capabilities envisioned from integrated surveillance and response using emerging technologies.

The LIDAR Observations of Optical and Physical Properties (LOOPP) Workshop was held at NURC in La Spezia, Italy, from 15 to 17 November 2011. This conference gathered experts on Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) systems to review past and current status of using this technology to retrieve water column optical properties, suggest improvements and generate a road-map of future LIDAR research. Click here for more details.

NURC participated in the 2011 North American Technology Demonstration (NATD) held in Ottawa, Canada, from 25 to 27 October 2011. The three-day event was sponsored by NATO's Emerging Security Challenges Divison, through their Defence Against Terrorism Programme of Work on Non-Lethal Capabilities. It was jointly hosted by the Canadian Department of National Defence and the US Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD). NATD was the largest non-lethal technology event ever, with 970 registrants from 30 nations.