The EU-funded Iliad Project, specializing in Digital Twins of the Ocean (DTO), has unveiled 22 pilot sites across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. These pilot sites showcase the application of Iliad's technologies in tackling various challenges specific to ocean industries.
The live demonstration of these sites is a focal point of the annual Iliad consortium meeting this week in Barcelona, Spain.
The Iliad Project, backed by €17 million in funding under the EU's €1 billion European Green Deal, aims to create a virtual model of the ocean for accurate predictions of future developments on a global scale. Comprising 56 partners from 18 countries, the project focuses on developing Digital Twins that integrate Earth Observation data, models, and digital infrastructures to forecast the marine environment's future.
The pilot sites, many of which have reached the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) stage, showcase the versatility of Iliad's technologies. These Digital Twins allow for interoperable applications, exchanging components to create DTO applications tailored to specific challenges. The key areas covered by the pilots include Coastal Sediment Transport, Harbour Safety, Ballast Water Monitoring, Fisheries Productivity, Ocean Energy Potential, Wind Energy, Jellyfish Swarm Forecast, Environmental Monitoring, Oil Spill Detection, Aquaculture, and Insurance.
"The pilot sites will enable us to demonstrate the value of the DTO approach by engaging with a variety of stakeholders and topics," said Iliad Coordinator Charalampos Ipektsidis, from Netcompany-Intrasoft. "The Iliad Project has assembled a broad and diverse user community of existing and new users that are using the project’s innovative technological solutions to address the particular challenges each one of them is facing."
