The SYMBIOSIS project is an innovation action funded in the scope of Horizon 2020’s BlueGrowth program, EU’s long term strategy to support sustainable growth in the marine and maritime sectors as a whole.

SYMBIOSIS will provide a mature, cost effective autonomous opto-acoustic prototype for the characterization, classification, and biomass evaluation of six target species of pelagic fish that are important to the fishery industry, and that reflect on the health of the environment. 

The processing will be made in a real-time fashion on site, and the results will be sent to a shore station. The system will be completely autonomous and will withstand a three-month deployment without recharging. SYMBIOSIS will also demonstrate the capabilities of the system and its readiness to a TRL6 (Technology Readiness Level) stage over three sea and ocean mooring sites.

SYMBIOSIS is devised as a blend of acoustic and optical components. The acoustic unit will include an active underwater acoustic array of 2X3 elements, to detect, classify, evaluate the biomass, and localize the predefined pelagic fish up to 500 m. The optical component will encompass a fixed frame of six underwater optical cameras, and will perform machine learning-based classification and biomass evaluation in the near field of 2-3 attenuation lengths in low light conditions. To conserve power, the optical unit will be triggered upon detection from the acoustic unit, and will use the results from the acoustic localization. The system will be modular, both in term of performance and in terms of composition, and will adapt to different scenarios and cost requirements.

SYMBIOSIS will involve the university of Haifa, Israel (four groups – project coordinator); IMDEA Networks, Spain (Ubiquitous Wireless Networks Group, led by Research Assistant Professor Dr. Paolo Casari, and Global Computing Group, led by Research Professor Dr. Antonio Fernández Anta); Wireless and More, Italy; and EvoLogics GmbH, Germany. The academic partners have already developed the technical components of the system, and have demonstrated preliminary results in multiple sea experiments. The industry partners have substantial experience with the integration of acoustic and optical components for long-term sea development, and are leading firms for the development of real-time underwater signal processing.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No.773753.