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The industrial mining of valuable raw materials on the seabed can represent a considerable encroachment on the deep-sea ecosystem. New technologies should help to plan and control mining activities in such a way that they remain ecologically acceptable.

In the DeepSea Protection project, a multi-sensory monitoring system for production-related environmental protection in deep-sea mining is therefore being developed, set up and tested. It enables the operational collection and fine-scale verification of geological and topographical data, detailed analyses of raw material distribution and, at the same time, a closer, up-to-date examination of the deep-sea ecology in the upcoming exploitation area. The observation area will cover an area of 10 square kilometres each at a depth of 3000 - 6000 m and will record both large-scale formations and hydrophysical observables such as turbidity of the water body as well as local details with a resolution in the range of a few millimetres.

The Sensorik-Bayern GmbH is developing a sensor data aggregation module that can be used to combine sensor and telemetric data from the multiparameter probes. It includes the connection to the respective components of the so-called "deep-sea squid" - i.e. the intelligent ground network in the form of small water vehicles - the raw data processing and result data transfer to the Sensor Cloud of Sensorik-Bayern GmbH, which has already proven itself in other deployment scenarios.

Project partners:

EvoLogics GmbH (Projektkoordinator)
Fraunhofer-Institut für Zuverlässigkeit und Mikrointegration
Sea & Sun Technology GmbH
Sensorik-Bayern GmbH
PlascoTec GmbH
Plasma Parylene Systems GmbH
Hochschule Aalen / Elektrische Antriebstechnik und Leistungselektronik
Fraunhofer-Institut für Graphische Bildverarbeitung

Project duration: 01.09.2021 - 31.08.2025

The project volume amounts to a total of 8.2 million euros for a four-year term and is funded with over 6.7 million euros by the BMWi.