INESC TEC is a private, non-profit association dedicated to scientific research and technological development, technology transfer, advanced consulting and training, and pre-incubation of new technology-based companies.

The University of Porto, INESC, the Polytechnic Institute of Porto, the University of Minho and the University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro are INESC TEC’s associates. Presently, INESC TEC’s main sites are located in the cities of Porto, Braga and Vila Real. At the end of 2020, INESC TEC’s 13 R&D Centres hosted 732 integrated researchers (354 PhDs), including staff researchers, researchers from Higher Education Institutions, grant holders and affiliated researchers. INESC TEC’s team also includes trainees and technical and administrative support staff.

As an institution operating at the interface between the academic and business worlds, bringing academia, companies, public administration, and society closer together, through its “managed science” model, INESC TEC leverages the knowledge and results generated as part of its research, in technology transfer projects, seeking impact both through value creation and social relevance.

INESC will develop the prototype’s sensing, perception, and awareness system and will contribute to control and mission management. INESC will also provide the TEC4SEA infrastructure and boats for logistic support for field trials.

WP6 addresses the research and development of sensing and perception methods, algorithms and approaches to enable AIRSHIP autonomous drones with novel perception and awareness capabilities. These capabilities must be developed to enable the systems with low latency and long range detection and tracking of possible obstacles, that allows the implementation of collision avoidance rules. In addition, multi sensory approaches and fusion methods will be explored and validated for accurate and real time sea wave perception and modelling.