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
- A team from the Resources Recovery and Environmental Management (R2EM) group, of the Barcelona Research Center in Multiscale Science and Engineering (CCEM), at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC), is participating in the MagNa project, which is developing an innovative system to recover magnesium from the brines generated by the seawater desalination process. The recovered materials will be used for industrial purposes and will help reduce Europe’s trade dependence.
- The Center for Industrial Diagnostics (CDIF) and the Energy Processing and Integrated Circuits (EPIC) group at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC) are participating in FLEXHYBAT (Design and control of flexible hydropower plants by hybridisation with second life batteries), a project exploring the hybridisation of hydropower plants with second-life batteries to improve their flexibility, efficiency and durability.
- The Centre for Technological Innovation in Static Converters and Drives (CITCEA) at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC) participates in the H2GLASS project, which aims to accelerate decarbonisation in the glass industry through the development and application of the new technologies needed to achieve complete hydrogen (H₂) combustion in glass or steel production facilities.
- A team from the CATMech at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC) has created a computer system that rapidly calculates the CO₂ balance of agricultural and forestry estates. The project, developed within the framework of Agrixels, is coordinated by the Intelligent Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Research Center (IDEAI-UPC) and applies machine learning, artificial intelligence and satellite data methodologies to estimate the emissions and carbon absorption capacity of a plot of land in just three minutes.
