Underwater Real-Time Monitoring and Information Technologies

Dear Colleagues,

Underwater real-time monitoring is fundamental for establishing multi-scale, continuous, and high-precision ocean observation systems. It holds significant strategic importance for advancing our scientific understanding of the oceans, ensuring the secure utilization of marine resources, strengthening underwater safety and security, and preserving the marine ecological environment. With the rapid evolution of ocean environmental processes and the increasing frequency of underwater activities, ocean environments exhibit enhanced dynamism, increased complexity, and interwoven multi-scale effects. Traditional fixed monitoring methods, periodic observation cruises, and offline analysis workflows cannot meet the current requirements of ocean research and engineering applications. Therefore, advancing underwater real-time monitoring methods and technologies has become essential for ocean scientific research, ecological security, and deep-sea engineering. This Special Issue focuses on high-performance underwater sensors and detection methods, autonomous platforms and distributed observation networks, multi-source data fusion and intelligent processing, underwater target detection and tracking, the in situ observation of seabed mineral resources, hydrothermal activity, and magmatic processes, underwater information transmission and communication, and underwater positioning, navigation, and time synchronization (PNT). We invite original research papers and comprehensive reviews from researchers and engineers in ocean science and related fields.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
– High-performance underwater sensors:
– Acoustic, optical, and magnetic detection methods;
– Underwater target detection, identification, and tracking;
– Multi-sensor data fusion and intelligent processing;
– Underwater communication;
– In situ seabed observation;
– Observation of seabed mineral resources, hydrothermal activity, and magmatic processes;
– Autonomous underwater vehicles, gliders, moorings, and mobile platforms;
– Distributed observation networks;
– Machine learning;
– PNT;
– Engineering applications and sea trials.

Dr. Liming Fan
Dr. Weina Zhao
Dr. Xiaojun Zhang
Guest Editors

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