HYDRO 2025 Conference Day 3

Chris is a senior manager with Kraken Robotics with a focus on survey innovation and robotics as a service. Following an offshore career in which he performed a multitude of site investigations and subsea asset surveys, he moved into a business development role, supporting integration of advanced survey solutions into client operations. At Kraken Robotics, he specializes in subsea asset protection and unexploded ordinance.

Richard is a bathymetric product specialist with EdgeTech Marine (Massachusetts, USA). With more than 30years experience in hydrographic surveying and having worked at companies including QPS, Reson, Applanix and Osiris, he has spent his fair share of time gaining hands-on experience with the respective equipment that together make up a typical integrated seabed mapping system.

Dr. Knut Hartmann is Earth Observation Service Line Manager at EOMAP, a Fugro company. Before joining the company in 2011, he worked in the geo-information dpt. and as remote sensing scientist in industry and research. He consults applied EO solutions with a focus on coastal and aquatic applications. Knut has received academic awards for excellence, served as an expert advisor for ITLOS court case, chairs IHO’s Satellite-Derived Bathymetry Project Team, and is a member of the UK and Ireland Hydrographic Society as well as the German Hydrographic Society.

Dr. Xavier Pellerin Le Bas received a Ph.D. from Normandie University, UNICAEN in 2018 for his research on “Ebb-tidal delta and sandspit morphodynamics in macrotidal environment: Orne and Dives inlets”. In 2019, he worked on the automatic classification of LiDAR data using machine learning and began developing the open-source software cLASpy_T. Since 2021, Dr. Pellerin Le Bas has been working at Scienteama with expertise related to remote sensing data and automatic classification. He continues to develop cLASpy_T with support from Scienteama and the M2C laboratory. His research focuses on workflows for the design of machine learning models.

Studied Geodesy at the TU Delft with as specialization Satellite Navigation. Worked for Radio Holland as Product Manager GPS, Hydrographic Software. Since 1999 worked as technical manager at Fugro-Omnistar. From 2011 responsible for monitoring the Fugro GNSS network. Since 2024 he is working on Fugro’s jamming and spoofing solutions as Product Manager.

Martin is the Head of Business Development for Civil Hydrography at XOCEAN. A Level 1 Hydrographic Surveyor through the Australian Hydrographic Surveyors Certification Panel (AHSCP), with over 17 years of planning, conducting and managing hydrographic surveys worldwide, Martin has a wealth of knowledge and experience within the hydrography sector, driving industry advancements and setting high standards for quality.

Al works as Remote Survey Solutions Manager in DeepOcean, and is based in Bergen, Norway. His current role involves implementing remote hydrographic survey capabilities for both conventional vessel operations and uncrewed surface vessels (USVs), in particular DeepOcean’s USV Challenger. Al has a background in hydrographic survey and R&D. He has worked in the subsea industry for the past 19 years, and holds a PhD from Cranfield University, UK, related to the use of geospatial data within coastal management applications.

Since childhood, Rob has had a fascination for maps and charts and the possibilities for traveling to far-flung places. His first job was a deck officer apprenticeship at P&O, leading to gaining a Second Mate’s certificate and further service as a deck officer with Ropner. During his time at sea, he sailed on a variety of ships, including passenger, general cargo and bulk cargo, to many parts of the world using Admiralty charts, created by the UK Hydrographic Office. The charts revealed a hidden world below the sea surface, an understanding of which was essential to safe navigation. Later, after gaining a BSc (Hons) degree in nautical studies from Liverpool Polytechnic and a Post Graduate Diploma in hydrographic surveying from the University of Plymouth, Rob worked as a hydrographic surveyor with Geodetic Surveys in West Africa and with Seateam in the Mediterranean and North Sea. Coming ashore in the 1990’s, Rob joined the Institute of Marine Studies in the University of Plymouth, supporting the undergraduate and post-graduate programmes in Hydrography ashore and afloat, initially as a senior survey technician and later as a lecturer in hydrography and related subjects. Following a 10-year diversion into overseas development in Africa, during which he gained a Masters in Water Management from Cranfield University, Rob returned to the survey world as an international survey trainer and then the global business training programme manager at Fugro in Aberdeen until Covid hit the survey industry. In 2021, Rob joined the UK Hydrographic Office in Taunton, initially as an international cartographic trainer and then a programme manager in the hydrographic programmes team. Now Rob manages a programme of diverse projects including USV surveys of the Cayman Islands, and LiDAR surveys of Kiribati and Northern Ireland. In early 2025, Rob took over the programme for managing the UK Centre for Seabed Mapping.