AMBIOS - Autonomous Marine Biodiversity Mapping and Bioprospecting Platform
AMBIOS will establish the world's first fully autonomous platform for multi-layer mapping of marine biodiversity and validate it on selected use cases in Mid-Norway. Targets are key contribu-tions to a sustainable bioresource management and value creation in the Norwegian blue bioeconomy.
The envisioned platform is centred around the consortium's unique access to marine research vessels and autonomous ships by NTNU and advisors at PROMARE. NTNU's vessels will be equipped with a compre-hensive package of analytical, data processing, and sampling infrastructure by project partners Biodiscovery andMarine Technologies that enables monitoring of micro- and macro-biodiversity from the sea surface to the benthic zone as the basis for autonomous marine exploration, biodiversity mapping, and bioprospecting.
The project will deliver:
- A system for continuous acquisition and automatic analysis of physical, chemical, and visual data of marine waters and the benthos from onboard autonomous marine vessels.
- An improved 3D biophysical model framework with self-learning capacity that feature new layers of biodiversity data and connects to the navigation systems on marine research vessels for autonomous navigation to and along biological features of interest.
- New knowledge on patterns of variation of physical, chemical, micro- and macro-biodiversity data in Mid-Norwegian marine waters that provide unprecedented insight into marine biology and ecology.
- Impact assessment and communication of opportunities and consequences of AMBIOS as a future concept for marine exploration and monitoring, biodiversity mapping, and bioprospecting.
Project information
Duration: 17th April 2023 - 16th April 2027
Funding: Research Council of Norway
Project Cost: 20 MNOK