SYNOPSIS

There is an increase of the use of robotic technology for the oceans, i.e. marine applications. Industry players, especially from marine engineering sector has projected serious utilisation of marine robotics technology for various strategic applications. Supervised and autonomous robotic platforms are getting more interest from the marine engineering community. The use of Remotely-Operated-Vehicle (ROV) and Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) have been on the increase due to their reliable technology support and versatility. For example, the deployment of autonomous ocean robotics for long distance/term ocean data gathering has gained momentum due its cost-effectiveness and quality of data gathered. These data have helped mariners to make informed decisions on the sea-route and risk analysis. The fusion of various other robotics technology, such as aerial robot and floating crafts, with underwater robotics platform has enabled more comprehensive applications to be tackled.

In this talk, the advances in various ocean robotics platforms and tools will be presented and discussed. The disruptive elements of ocean robotics towards the current marine engineering industry shall also be mooted.


BIODATA OF SPEAKER

Ir. Prof. Dr. Mohd Rizal Arshad graduated from the University of Liverpool, in 1994 with a B.Eng. in the field of Medical Electronics and Instrumentation. He then pursued his MSc. in Electronic Control Engineering at the University of Salford, graduating in Dec. 1995. Following from this, in early 1996, he continued his study with a PhD degree in Electronic Engineering, with specialization in robotic vision system. After completing his PhD training, i.e. January 1999, he started working at the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Malaysia as a full-time academic. He has supervised many postgraduate students at the MSc. and PhD. levels. He has also published actively in local and international publications. He is currently a Full Professor and the Dean of the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, USM. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT) for a period of two years (2016/2018). In 2011, he was awarded with the Chartered Engineer (C.Eng) status from the Engineering Council UK. While, in early 2016 he was elevated to the Fellow Member status with IMarEST – a professional society based in the UK. He is currently the President of the Malaysian Society for Automatic Control Engineers (MACE) and Chair of the Oceanic Engineering Society (OES) Malaysia Chapter. In early 2017, he was awarded with the Professional Engineer (P.Eng) status by the Board of Engineer, Malaysia (BEM). Prof Rizal is well known as the pioneer of underwater system technology research efforts in Malaysia.