The NERITES project participated in the 34th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation (MED 2026), held from 23 to 26 June 2026 in Ancona, Italy.
The paper “Nerites Framework: An Open-Source ROS2 Gym Environment for Intelligent Underwater Robotics” introduced an open-source simulation framework supporting the development and training of autonomous underwater vehicles through Reinforcement Learning.
The framework connects a realistic underwater vehicle simulator with ROS 2 and a Gym-compatible learning environment, while preserving the existing physics engine. It provides standardised observation and action spaces and supports integration with modern Reinforcement Learning algorithms.
As a proof of concept, the research team integrated the Graal Tech X300 Twin AUV and trained a Soft Actor-Critic policy for waypoint navigation under realistic hydrodynamic conditions. The results demonstrated stable learning and reliable convergence, highlighting the framework’s potential for underwater robotics research and future sim-to-real applications.
The framework is freely available through the Nerites open-source repository.
Learn more about the MED 2026 Conference here
Full agenda here
Book of abstract here
