Gabriele Bruzzone

Gabriele Bruzzone received in 1993 the degree cum laude in electronic engineering from the University of Genoa. Since 1996 he has been working as a researcher at the CNR (National Research Council). Since 2010 he has been a senior researcher. His research activity focuses on the design and development of real-time hardware and software architectures for simulation and control of complex robotic systems (process automation plants, manipulators, autonomous and tele-operated underwater and surface marine vehicles, and terrestrial ones), sensors and actuators. In particular, since 2009, he has been the person in charge of the Marine Robotics lab and of the technological and scientific development of all the robots developed by the Marine Robotics research group. He has leaded the development of three USVs (Unmanned Surface Vehicles): Charlie, ALANIS, SWAMP; one USSV (Unmanned Semi-Submersible Vehicle): Shark; three ROVs (Remotely Operated Vehicles): Romeo, e-URoPe, P2-ROV; one UGV (Unmanned Ground Vehicle): MARC and a modular, transformable and multi-use marine autonomous vehicle: PROTEUS. Most of the aforementioned vehicles were successfully exploited at field during manifold scientific campaigns, many of which performed in harsh environments like Arctic and Antarctic regions.

The Anthropocene is characterised by extreme weather events and rapid climatic changes. It is, therefore, fundamental, to understand and forecast the driving processes of the oceanic environment. The importance of monitoring the most remote areas of the planet lays in the uncertainties associated with weather predictions, Earth system understanding, and climate mitigation, to name a few. Smart, modular and reconfigurable unmanned marine vehicles can reach and navigate harsh areas, such as the tidal glaciers sites, making available data that have been so far unreachable. In 2022 INM carried out scientific campaigns both the Arctic and the Antarctic regions, deploying two highly configurable marine robotic platforms: SWAMP (Shallow Water Autonomous Multipurpose Platform ) and PROTEUS (Portable RObotic TEchnology for Underwater Surveys). During the campaigns were gathered novel biogeochemical and physical data and samples, as well as a collection of under ice images and videos. The valorisation of such a unique set of data led to the understanding of the importance of standards and data protocols to make the missions repeatable and to offer to the community a meaningful dataset.