Activities

TEC4SEA

Research infrastructure

TEC4SEA is a vertically integrated infrastructure, in the sense that it possesses a set of skills and resources ranging from pure conceptual research to sea going missions, with strong industrial and logistic competences in the middle tier of prototype production. It can thus support researchers in all phases of technology development, from conception and theoretical analysis, to prototype development, field test deployments, and technology validation.

TEC4SEA is a geographically distributed infrastructure, with physical presence at the North and South of Portugal. It is open to the entire scientific and enterprise/industrial community, with a free access policy for researchers affiliated with the research units that ensure its maintenance and sustainability.

As a direct result of the nature of the founding partners (INESC TEC and CINTAL) and of the role envisaged for the infrastructure within the Portuguese National Ocean Strategy, it is designed to serve not only the academic community, but also the industrial community, fostering and promoting R&D and technology transfer, and helping the intended growth of a sustainable blue economy sector.

TEC4SEA is highly multidisciplinary, with a special focus in four research lines:

  • Marine robotics, addressing the development of solutions for long term deployments, deep water operations, autonomous inspection and intervention, intelligent data harvesting, and safe operation of unmanned platforms.
  • Technologies and systems for underwater monitoring, namely fibre optic sensors and imaging systems for measuring physical, chemical and biological parameters and enabling smart infrastructures.
  • Broadband wireless communications systems for ocean environments, including radio systems for over water communications and acoustic, optical, and radio systems for underwater communications.
  • Acoustic systems for ocean monitoring and exploration.

The TEC4SEA research infrastructure is a unique and pioneer platform in Europe to support research, development and test of marine robotics, telecommunications and sensing technologies, for monitoring and operating in the ocean environment.