Abstract
Highlights What are the main findings? The SLAM method, based on the registration of 3D profiling sonar scans using the 3DupIC method, avoids the construction of submaps and thereby overcomes the limitations of other state-of-the-art approaches. Simultaneous optimization of the trajectory and extrinsic parameters, using the proposed SLAM and calibration method, ensures high accuracy in trajectory and map estimation. What is the implication of the main finding? Direct registration of raw scans supports two distinct applications. On the one hand, it enables pose estimation through odometry. On the other hand, it provides loop-closure constraints for the SLAM process. 3D profiling sonars are highly effective sensors for mapping, localization, and SLAM applications. This demonstration is particularly important as newer, smaller, and more affordable sonars in this category become available, contributing to their wider adoption.Highlights What are the main findings? The SLAM method, based on the registration of 3D profiling sonar scans using the 3DupIC method, avoids the construction of submaps and thereby overcomes the limitations of other state-of-the-art approaches. Simultaneous optimization of the trajectory and extrinsic parameters, using the proposed SLAM and calibration method, ensures high accuracy in trajectory and map estimation. What is the implication of the main finding? Direct registration of raw scans supports two distinct applications. On the one hand, it enables pose estimation through odometry. On the other hand, it provides loop-closure constraints for the SLAM process. 3D profiling sonars are highly effective sensors for mapping, localization, and SLAM applications. This demonstration is particularly important as newer, smaller, and more affordable sonars in this category become available, contributing to their wider adoption.Abstract High resolution underwater mapping is fundamental to the sustainable development of the blue economy, supporting offshore energy expansion, marine habitat protection, and the monitoring of both living and non-living resources. This work presents a pose-graph SLAM and calibration framework specifically designed for 3D profiling sonars, such as the Coda Octopus Echoscope 3D. The system integrates a probabilistic scan matching method (3DupIC) for direct registration of 3D sonar scans, enabling accurate trajectory and map estimation even under degraded dead reckoning conditions. Unlike other bathymetric SLAM methods that rely on submaps and assume short-term localization accuracy, the proposed approach performs direct scan-to-scan registration, removing this dependency. The factor graph is extended to represent the sonar extrinsic parameters, allowing the sonar-to-body transformation to be refined jointly with trajectory optimization. Experimental validation on a challenging real world dataset demonstrates outstanding localization and mapping performance. The use of refined extrinsic parameters further improves both accuracy and map consistency, confirming the effectiveness of the proposed joint SLAM and calibration approach for robust and consistent underwater mapping.

Abstract
Marine litter is a growing environmental threat, with severe ecological and socio-economic impacts. Most monitoring strategies rely on optical sensors to detect surface pollution, however these approaches fail to capture submerged plastics dispersed throughout the water column. Multibeam acoustic imaging offers a complementary solution, but the scarcity of annotated sonar datasets and the high noise levels of acoustic imagery make automated detection and tracking particularly challenging. This study presents a comparative evaluation of deep learning based multi-object tracking (MOT) algorithms applied to water column acoustic data. Pre-trained YOLOv8 detectors were integrated with tracking-by-detection frameworks including BoT-SORT, OC-SORT, ByteTrack, and DeepOC-SORT. Performance was assessed across acoustic frequencies and preprocessing strategies using standard MOT metrics. Results show that adaptive Gaussian thresholding and opening morphology improved robustness at lower frequencies ( 950 kHz and 1200 kHz ), while unprocessed inputs proved more resilient to severe clutter at 1400 kHz . BoostTrack and ByteTrack achieved the most consistent tracking, effectively managing intermittent detections to maximise MOTA and IDF1. In contrast, OC-SORT underperformed, struggling with fragmented sonar trajectories. Furthermore, while efficient Nano models dominated at lower frequencies, Medium models were required under higher noise. These findings demonstrate the feasibility of applying MOT methods to sonar-based litter monitoring. Future work will explore unsupervised learning approaches to leverage intrinsic sonar data structure, reduce annotation needs, and enable scalable marine litter tracking.

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Abstract
The European Project Semester (EPS), offered by the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP), is a capstone programme designed for undergraduate students in engineering, product design, and business. EPS@ISEP fosters project-based learning, promotes multicultural and interdisciplinary teamwork, and ethics- and sustainability-driven design. This study applies Natural Language Processing techniques, specifically text mining, to analyse project papers produced by EPS@ISEP teams. The proposed method aims to identify evidence of ethical concerns within EPS@ISEP projects. An innovative keyword mapping approach is introduced that first defines and refines a list of ethics-related keywords through prompt engineering. This enriched list of keywords is then used to systematically map the content of project papers. The findings indicate that the EPS@ISEP robotics project papers analysed demonstrate awareness of ethical considerations and actively incorporate them into design processes. The method presented is adaptable to various application areas, such as monitoring compliance with responsible innovation or sustainability policies.

Abstract
In recent years, the research community, but also the general public, has raised serious questions about the reproducibility and replicability of scientific work. Since many studies include some kind of computational work, these issues are also a technological challenge, not only in computer science, but also in most research domains. Computational replicability and reproducibility are not easy to achieve due to the variety of computational environments that can be used. Indeed, it is challenging to recreate the same environment via the same frameworks, code, programming languages, dependencies, and so on. We propose a framework, known as SciRep, that supports the configuration, execution, and packaging of computational experiments by defining their code, data, programming languages, dependencies, databases, and commands to be executed. After the initial configuration, the experiments can be executed any number of times, always producing exactly the same results. Our approach allows the creation of a reproducibility package for experiments from multiple scientific fields, from medicine to computer science, which can be re-executed on any computer. The produced package acts as a capsule, holding absolutely everything necessary to re-execute the experiment. To evaluate our framework, we compare it with three state-of-the-art tools and use it to reproduce 18 experiments extracted from published scientific articles. With our approach, we were able to execute 16 (89%) of those experiments, while the others reached only 61%, thus showing that our approach is effective. Moreover, all the experiments that were executed produced the results presented in the original publication. Thus, SciRep was able to reproduce 100% of the experiments it could run. © 2025 The Authors

Abstract