TEC4SEA – Developing Maritime Technology

The TEC4SEA Research Infrastructure

TEC4SEA is a research infrastructure designed to support research, development, and test of marine technology for operation in the ocean environment, and is included in the Portuguese Roadmap of Research Infrastructures. It is open to both the R&D community and the industrial sector, and provides the equipment, expertise, and logistics needed to support those communities in developing, evaluating, and validating technological solutions designed for maritime environments, thus fostering and advancing the blue economy.

Its characteristics, geographic location allowing fast access to deep sea, and support of multidisciplinary research, enable full validation and evaluation of technological solutions designed for the ocean environment, allowing researchers to evolve from simulation/lab experiment to field trial. The research infrastructure brings together a set of laboratories, testbeds, equipment, and support facilities for experiments in controlled and real environments

Technological areas

The set of capabilities, resources and know-how detained by TEC 4SEA within its several research groups and member entities is very broad and eclectic. They can, however, be coarsely grouped into four main broad areas of intervention:

Robotics
The development of robotic platforms capable of supporting different payloads, missions, and environments is one of the core activities of TEC4SEA. The infrastructure currently possesses a vast number of such platforms, both autonomous and remotely controlled, including buoys and aerial, surface, and underwater vehicles.

Maritime communications
Operating at sea requires the existence of reliable communications for both data and control channels. TEC4SEA possesses a set of laboratories, testbeds, equipment, and support facilities for communications experiments and development in both controlled and real environments.

Sensors
No maritime operations are possible without an appropriate set of reliable sensors. TEC4SEA possesses the laboratories, know-how and skills that enable it to develop new sensors, customized to the mission, with a strong emphasis on optical and acoustic sensors.

Mission support
Operating at sea requires a full set of logistical capabilities, ranging from support vessels to the existence of support installations near the waterline and the logistic capabilities to transport to seashore the equipment and resources existing in onshore laboratories. TEC4SEA possesses and makes available these capabilities.