The Special Interest Group for Underwater Acoustics (SIGUA) is holding a two‑day hackathon alongside the International Conference on Underwater Acoustics (ICUA) 2026. The event will take place on 14-15 June 2026 at the University of Strathclyde’s Technology & Innovation Centre in Glasgow. This will be the fourth SIGUA hackathon, following successful events in 2022 (Sheffield), 2023 (Bath), and 2025 (Bath). Registration details to follow.
In addition, a virtual pre‑event will be held on Zoom at a date to be confirmed. This will allow Challenge Leaders to introduce their datasets and provide early access, as well as give participants an opportunity to meet one another and form teams ahead of the main event.
The hackathon offers a unique opportunity to explore current and emerging challenges in underwater acoustics, collaborate with fellow researchers, and develop innovative solutions. Small teams will work intensively on one of the industry‑defined challenges over the two days, with representatives from industry circulating between groups to offer context, insights, and support.
Challenge #1 – Marine Traffic Acoustic Footprint Assessment in the Celtic Sea
The Subsea Soundscape (S3) Offshore Wind Evidence and Change (OWEC) program pioneers a regional framework in the Celtic Sea to provide valuable insights into underwater noise conditions and marine mammal presence, informing maritime spatial planning and consenting decisions for floating wind development. To accomplish this, 21 autonomous passive acoustic monitoring stations were deployed in October 2025 for two years, and were located to capture spatial heterogeneity in soundscape characteristics, encompassing varying depths, distances from shipping lanes, and proximity to different habitat types and proposed offshore wind lease areas. For this challenge, you will be tasked with developing methods for automatic detection and characterisation of marine traffic acoustic footprints. A sub-sample of the 21x station broadband hydrophone data will be provided together with AIS data containing information of vessel types, locations and speeds.
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Challenge #2 – Generative Sound Production for a Submarine Serious Game
Simulation environments play a central role in underwater acoustics research, enabling controlled experimentation, algorithm development, and human-AI interaction studies without the logistical and ethical constraints of extensive field trials. While contemporary simulation frameworks are increasingly sophisticated in their treatment of acoustic propagation, the source signals injected into these environments often remain simplistic, repetitive, or insufficiently realistic. In reality, underwater acoustic sources, both biological (e.g., whales) and anthropogenic (e.g., ships), exhibit rich and non-stationary structure. They vary as a function of behaviour, depth, time, etc. For simulation environments to meaningfully reflect real-world conditions, the variability and structure must already be present at the source signal, such that propagation models act on realistic inputs. This challenge addresses the need for data-driven or AI-based approaches to generating realistic and varied underwater acoustic source signals that can be integrated into simulation testbeds.
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Challenge #3 – TBD
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Posted on 20th February 2026 in Early Career, Early Careers Group, Events, Noise, Noise and Soundscape, Underwater Acoustics
