Page 26: of Marine Technology Magazine (May 2025)

INTERVIEW ALEX PHILLIPS, NOC “One of the areas that we’re interested in is using some of the machine learning tools is to identify faults onboard the vehicle because, sometimes, it’s really hard to disentangle why a vehicle isn’t going up or down in the water column. Is the pitch sensor broken? Is it the pressure sensor broken?

T ere are all sorts of dif erent failure modes which can lead you to not be moving up and down in the water column the way that you’d like to.” – Alex Phillips,

Head of Marine Autonomous Robotic Systems (MARS) either look at the plankton in the water column or count the hicles. We use AI, as I talked about, for data interpretation. That critters on the seabed. The increase in sensor capability has sits over more with the science community, and they use it ex- allowed us to tackle some new problems. But, also, the long- tensively to try and deal with the data sets that we’re generating.

range vehicles we have, because they’re a bit bigger, it allows One of the areas that we’re interested in is using some of the us to stack more sensors on board so you’re not just measuring machine learning tools is to identify faults onboard the vehicle a single parameter now, you’ve potentially got, as I said, lots because, sometimes, it’s really hard to disentangle why a vehi- of carbonate chemistry, lots of nutrient chemistry, all going on cle isn’t going up or down in the water column. Is the pitch sen- board with turbulence, with CTD. You can build a much more sor broken? Is it the pressure sensor broken? There are all sorts capable platform. And as we’re getting more data, then you’re of different failure modes which can lead you to not be moving starting to really run into things like machine learning and the up and down in the water column the way that you’d like to. So, need for those kind of technologies to deal with the data sets can you use some of the machine learning tools to do anomaly that are coming off the platforms, particularly around the imag- detection in the