On the 31st March, the first in person meeting of the entire PLOME team was held at the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC) in Barcelona. The goal was to finalize the technological goals of the PLOME initiative and to build stronger connections between the different groups involved. Our diverse team of engineers, roboticists, data analysts, software programmers, and ecologists facilitated a productive discussion that not only helped to solidify the roadmap for the PLOME project but also laid the groundwork for several new projects.
Specifically, these included proposals to complement the PLOME system with mid-water cameras (called Anglers and developed by one of the researchers at ICM) for monitoring pelagic environments and developing novel machine-learning tools for analyzing ecological data.
