TECHNOLOGICAL CAPABILITIES
OCEAN ENERGY
- Tidal power, wave power, offshore wind power, ocean thermal energy conversion, energy form currents and blue energy or salinity gradient energy.
MARITIME TRANSPORT
- Energy saving, reduction of contamination and improvement in management of energy quality and emissions.
PORT ACTIVITIES
- Studies of the traffic of boats in ports and air quality, using data from the automatic identification system (AIS) during manoeuvres.
- Production and maintenance of shipyards.
MARINE LIVING RESOURCES
- Prediction of hydro-morphodynamic and ecological evolution.
- Management of coastal bays.
- Monitoring of estuaries.
- Use of meteo-oceanographic conditions.
- Automatic learning. Modelling and display of marine agriculture data.
- Integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (MTA) techniques.
- Analysis and effect of meteorological and seasonal variables on the breeding system.
- Systematic studies of localization and monitoring of marine species to understand their behaviour.
- Measure of surface circulation forced by waves breaking. Monitoring habitat degradation.
INFRASTRUCTURE
- Addressing the negative impact of coastal construction on biodiversity.
- Reduction of the acoustic impact and vibrations from these constructions.
- Establishment of standards for terminology and methodology.
- Control of wind turbines and electricity substations and numerical modelling to take advantage of wave energy.
THE BLUE BIOECONOMY & BIOTECHNOLOGY
- Studies of natural pressures on the sea and those derived from humans.
- Development of a European system for ocean observation.
- Estimations of the amount of plastic floating on the surface of the ocean.
- Comprehensive modelling to trace the movement of plastic over the ocean.
SHIPBUILDING AND REPAIR
- Manufacture of vessels. Efficient, digitalized, automated and modular production of boats.
- Integration of the industrial internet of things (IIoT).
MARINE NON-LIVING RESOURCES
- Supply of critical raw materials.
- Improvement in underwater capture equipment (collectors).
- Seawater processing techniques and desalination.
COASTAL TOURISM
- Improvement in coverage in time and space, and in the resolution and quality of marine observations.
- Water management with innovative systems to manage reserves and the planning of trips.
RELATED PROJECTS
- RootBot aims to develop and demonstrate an autonomous robotic electromagnetic detection system equipped with ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and advanced navigation technologies to map the root systems of fruit trees and soil moisture. This project seeks to optimize agricultural resource management, particularly water, and contribute to more sustainable farming through the use of innovative technological tools.
- The Group of Environmental Engineering and Microbiology (GEMMA) at UPC is leading the PROALGAE project, aimed at producing new alternative proteins from biomass derived from microalgae and cyanobacteria cultivated using by-products from the agri-food industry. These alternative proteins aim to provide a sustainable ingredient to meet the growing global demand for protein, applicable in the development of food and feed.
- An international research team led by the UPC has created a hybrid device that combines, for the first time ever, molecular solar thermal energy storage with silicon-based photovoltaic energy. It achieves a record energy storage efficiency of 2.3% and up to 14.9% total solar energy utilisation.
- Energy consumption in training and inference of artificial intelligence (AI) models, such as large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4, has become a critical challenge due to its environmental impact and the costs associated with high-performance computing (HPC). The energy required to train these models and interact with them increases significantly as the models grow in size and complexity.
