On April 24, 2025, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the University of Montenegro organized the expert visit "Underwater Sensing and Marine Exploration" as part of the Horizon Europe MONUSEN project. The event featured a series of lectures delivered by PhD candidates from the University of Zagreb, offering participants valuable insights into advanced underwater technologies.

The program opened with the lecture "Using Sound to See Underwater" by Igor Kvasić, which explored how sound has become the primary tool for perceiving the underwater environment. Participants learned about the physics of underwater acoustics, the evolution of sonar systems, and the role of machine learning and simulation in the development of next-generation sonar technologies.

In the second lecture, "Glider Whale Chasing in the Caribbean," Marko Barišić introduced an innovative approach to marine research using autonomous underwater gliders. Equipped with advanced acoustic sensors, these gliders detect and track whale movements in real time while operating with minimal energy consumption. The presentation highlighted mission planning strategies, real-time navigation, and the potential of such technologies for marine conservation.

The final lecture, "How Do Divers Localize Themselves?" by Vladimir Slošić, explored the challenges of diver navigation in GPS-denied underwater environments. While professional divers rely on costly equipment such as hand-held inertial navigation units and AUV-based acoustic systems, recreational divers must depend on simpler methods like magnetic compasses and manual distance estimation. The lecture provided a critical overview of current localization techniques, highlighting their strengths and limitations, and introduced innovative, low-cost approaches developed at the LABUST laboratory, aimed at making accurate underwater localization more accessible to the wider diving community.

The event concluded with an open discussion, where students and researchers engaged directly with the lecturers, exploring future directions in underwater sensing, localization, and autonomous operations.

The expert visit significantly contributed to strengthening the research capacity of the University of Montenegro in the fields of underwater technologies and marine exploration.

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