Smart Blue Tourism: Towards Smart Marinas and Tourist Boats

Coastal marine traffic is increasing annually, particularly in the Mediterranean, where boat charters attract hundreds of thousands of tourists. Ensuring maritime safety and monitoring environmental conditions are essential to protect boaters and swimmers but also to mitigate pollution. On one hand, this research aims to develop an easily deployable, long-term ocean monitoring solution suitable for global implementation. A smart buoy is designed and equipped with a multiparametric sonde and a software architecture to collect and transmit sensor readings. The developed buoy is self-sustaining through solar power and successfully operates in marine environments. On the other hand, we seek to advance maritime situational awareness research by collecting a comprehensive dataset that can be used by other researchers to evaluate and improve their algorithms. A sensor rack is developed to integrate cameras, LiDAR, AIS, IMU, and GNSS to capture maritime data. The sensor rack provides a robust platform for data collection, enabling the acquisition of a diverse dataset. We also evaluate the performance of a YOLOv9 model for object detection within the maritime context. Both developed systems show design robustness and good algorithm performance during various field trials in Adriatic Sea.