ANGLER: PHYSICAL AI-POWERED HYBRID MARITIME AGENT FOR COASTAL MONITORING AND INFRASTRUCTURE INSPECTIONcore
Angler AI agent · Horizon Europe grant · 2026-09-01–2027-05-31
EC contribution
Total cost
Beneficiaries
About the data
Source: CORDIS (official EU open data), Horizon Europe. Framework HORIZON · call HORIZON-EIC-2026-AIC · scheme HORIZON-EIC · topic HORIZON-EIC-2026-AIC-01. CORDIS record →
Objective
Embodied Physical AI Maritime Agent for Civil Security & Infrastructure ResilienceAngler is an embodied Physical AI maritime agent capable of autonomous operation across surface and underwater domains within a single integrated system. The platform addresses a structural gap in coastal monitoring and critical infrastructure inspection, where current workflows rely on fragmented combinations of crewed vessels, USVs, and UUVs. These approaches are costly, operator-intensive, and limited in GNSS-denied and communication-constrained environments.The Angler system integrates multi-modal perception (sonar, LiDAR, optical, thermal), GNSS-denied navigation, and AI-driven decision-making into a hybrid USV/UUV architecture. A mission-adaptive control layer governs autonomous surface–subsurface transitions, adaptive routing, and onboard sensor fusion. Object detection accuracy exceeds 90% in low-visibility conditions, while navigation drift is maintained within defined tolerance envelopes under GNSS-denied operation. The system stores mission episodes locally and incrementally updates navigation policies without cloud retraining, enabling adaptive performance improvement across deployments.The project advances the platform from TRL5 to TRL7–8 through open-water validation in relevant coastal environments. Key targets include ≥95% transition reliability, ≥8-hour mission endurance, autonomous anomaly detection, and structured product–market validation with industrial stakeholders.Angler contributes to EU technological sovereignty in autonomous maritime systems, supporting resilient monitoring of ports, subsea cables, offshore renewable assets, and coastal ecosystems. By replacing dual-vehicle deployments with a single AI-governed system, the platform enables 30–50% operational cost reduction and reduces dependency on non-EU inspection technologies.The project aligns with the EIC Physical AI Challenge by demonstrating embodied AI capable of perception–decision–actua
Beneficiaries (1)
| Organisation | Country | Role | EC contribution | SME |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Angler s. r. o. | CZ | coordinator | €300,000 |
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