This yearly exercise aligns the interest of the different partners together with the opportunity to put autonomous and unmanned vehicles to the test in open water environments in Portugal. AMOS/NTNU is contributing together with NORUT Tromsø with the technology and operation of several Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) equipped with thermal/infrared and hyperspectral sensors.

The primary goal of this edition of REP is to demonstrate coordinated strategies for aerial and underwater robotic vehicles, in the context of specific pure scientific objectives. These vary from habitat mapping of the southern coast of Pico Island in the Azores, to observing and tracking cetaceans in open waters south of Pico near the São Mataeus bank and to map and characterize the upper water column near shallow hydro-thermal vents near Ponta de Espalamaca just north of Horta on Faial Island.