Natural and artificial radioactivity in deep oceans is still significantly under-sampled and largely understudied, despite its importance for the sustainability of marine environments. RAMONES (RadioActivity Monitoring in OceaN EcosystemS) is a newly funded FET Proactive Environmental Intelligence project aiming at closing this existing gap by providing radically new solutions for autonomous, large-scale monitoring of radioactivity in harsh subsea environments.

RAMONES ambition is to bring together innovative technology and recent advancements in sensory materials, low-power autonomous robotic systems, and state-of-the-art modelling techniques to overcome current limitations in performing in situ and in near real time underwater radioactivity measurements at large spatiotemporal scales.

A new generation of submarine radiation-sensing instruments, assisted by state-of-the-art robotic and artificial intelligence, will be designed, developed and validated by RAMONES, to define the new standards in high efficiency and fine resolution of in situ spectroscopic studies in the marine environment. RAMONES aims to contribute to shaping the Environmental Intelligence framework of the next decade by offering novel technologies and suggesting new policies towards advancing environmental, social and financial resilience and sustainability.

The consortium is led by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and comprises a dynamic multidisciplinary team of researchers from Instituto Superior Técnico (Lisbon), EvoLogics GmbH (Berlin), École Normale Superiéure de Paris, National Tecnhical University of Athens, Ploa Technology Consultants S.L. (Girona), University of Durham and Université Clermont Auvergne.

(this article appeared on FETFX magazine)