Benjamin Williamson’s research includes marine and terrestrial sensing, with a focus on environmental science. His research interests include sensor fusion, remote sensing above and under water, computer vision and machine learning, with applications from measuring the environmental and ecological effects of marine renewable energy devices to marine plastic litter. He has a background in smart grids (link), prior to hydroacoustics and developing subsea multi-sensor platforms to track the interactions of fish, seabirds and marine mammals with marine energy devices. He is a Principal Investigator at the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) and Chair of UHI Energy Innovation.

His PhD was in robotics and developed hybrid-ROV/AUVs for near-shore habitat mapping of kelp beds using multibeam sonar and video (link). He has a keen interest in developing novel sensor platforms to investigate biophysical interactions in the marine environment, such as using UAVs (link) to investigate behavioural associations of top predators with fine-scale hydrodynamic surface features at tidal energy sites.

Current projects include investigating ecosystem effects of fixed and floating offshore wind in the £2.25m PELAgIO and £2.93m EQUIFy projects, the £800k PREDICT project improving understanding of fish migration patterns and providing a vision for next-generation monitoring techniques, and IFLOW investigating effects of floating offshore wind on fish and marine mammals. More widely, projects include island energy systems (€7m ROBINSON), sustainable aviation (£9.4m SATE2), wave energy for off-grid communities (£733k INGINE), and two KTPs supporting knowledge and technology transfer with industry.

Previous projects range from using drones to map surface currents and seabirds at marine energy sites (V-SCORES) to mapping floating plastic litter (TISPLALI), and from marine renewable energy resource assessment (Gibraltar) to validating reliable environmental monitoring for ocean energy (OERA Pathway Program) or hydrogen utilisation and green energy (HUGE).

Accepting PhD/MRes students and internship / placement students and available as PhD external examiner.

Current PhD projects include:

1. Using multibeam sonar to investigate changes in animal behaviour around marine renewable energy sites (funded by NERC SUPER DTP).
2. Impacts of floating offshore wind on the distribution and behaviour of fish and marine mammals (funded by NERC SUPER DTP and Equinor).
3. Validating next-generation biophysical and metocean monitoring techniques for offshore renewable energy (funded by ETP/SPEERI and Sonardyne).
4. Novel remote-sensing techniques to quantify fine-scale seabird hydrodynamic habitat associations in tidally driven currents using X-band radar (funded by UHI).

2025 Adjunct (Faculty of Graduate Studies) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dalhousie University
2023 Honorary Reader, University of Aberdeen
2017 IET Chartered Engineer (CEng)
2013 PhD Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Bath
2011 Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (MIET)
2007 MSc (Distinction) Mechatronics, University of Bath
2006 BEng (Hons) Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Bath