Between June 16 and 19, the OCEANS 2025 Conference took place in Brest, France. OCEANS is a major international forum for scientists, engineers, and end users, where the latest research results, innovations, and applications across all areas of ocean science and engineering are presented and discussed. The event is co-sponsored by the Marine Technology Society and the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society. One of the highlights of the conference is the prestigious Student Poster Competition (SPC), which provides selected students with travel grants to attend and present their work.

The LEONARDO-BBVA project participated with two presentations that were recognized for their participation in the Student Poster Competition. Joan Armajach, a JAEIntro fellow at ICM-CSIC, presented the paper “Geolocation and tracking of Pop-up buoys using ADALM-PLUTO software-defined radio and a Blueboat unmanned surface vessel.” Carlos de la Vega, a UPC fellow hired through the LEONARDO-BBVA project, presented “Compression and segmentation methods on Argos-based image transmission for environmental seafloor monitoring.”

Both presentations highlighted advances in the near-real-time recovery of data from benthic instrumentation nodes using pop-up buoys, a key component of the LEONARDO-BBVA project. These buoys store valuable information about the benthic ecosystem and, once released to the surface, can transmit part of the data to shore-based servers via satellite communication. They can also be located and tracked by autonomous vehicles, helping researchers recover both the data and the devices.

This work was funded by a 2024 Leonardo Grant for Scientific Research and Cultural Creation from the BBVA Foundation (LEO24-1-13125).