001 / About

A coupled maritime-aerial system.

SPONA develops an integrated autonomous maritime-aerial system that combines a small uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) with a VTOL uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) for reliable and efficient operations in challenging marine environments. A central research challenge is enabling the UAV to autonomously land on a small moving USV deck, a key capability for persistent maritime missions.

The project integrates digital twins, numerical modelling, sensor fusion, situational awareness, autonomous navigation and control, and deck-motion prediction. The digital twin provides a common environment for modelling the coupled system, testing autonomy algorithms, and progressively validating their performance before deployment on physical prototypes.

Through laboratory experiments, model-basin testing, hardware-in-the-loop simulations, and field trials, SPONA will validate the system from TRL 2 to TRL 4. The project also advances the design and manufacturing of lightweight composite structures for both the maritime and aerial platforms, supporting future scalable production.

The resulting technologies will provide a foundation for compact autonomous systems supporting coastal monitoring, environmental protection, public safety, civil protection, and offshore infrastructure inspection, while enabling further development toward higher technology readiness levels.

002 / MARBLE's role

Situational awareness and USV autonomy.

MARBLE leads the development of situational awareness and autonomous USV capabilities, including sensor fusion, object detection and tracking, SLAM, path planning, collision avoidance, and the development of digital-twin components for the coupled maritime-aerial system.

003 / Partners

Research and industry partners.

University of Zagreb, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture (UNIZG-FSB) · project coordinator

Centre of Excellence MARBLE · research partner

Centre for Technology Transfer (CTT) · technology transfer partner

iCat d.o.o. · industry partner

Domitran Novitas d.o.o. · industry partner

This project is co-funded by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under the Competitiveness and Cohesion Programme 2021-2027, within the call Collaborative Scientific Research (PK.1.1.13).