Kevin Köser

Kevin Köser holds dual affiliations:

• Professor of Computer Science at Kiel University (Marine Data Science)
• Emmy Noether Research Group Leader for "Oceanic Machine Vision" at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, Kiel

His research focuses on:

• 3D underwater robot vision and automated camera-based measurement for deep-sea environments
• Physical models of underwater light transport and imaging
• 3D mapping and reconstruction from deep-sea photos
• Novel vision methods for quantification in 2D, 3D, and 4D

His work enables exploration, monitoring, and hazard assessment of deep-sea habitats. Recent publications demonstrate advancements in refractive photogrammetry, digital twins, and autonomous seafloor mapping.

Scientific awards:

• Prof. Petersen Prize for Technology (VDI/VDE/PWP Foundation)
• Dissertation award (University of Kiel)
• DAGM 2011 Main Prize
• Emmy-Noether Programme grant (2019)

Prof. Köser mentors computer science master's students on robust estimation, GPU computation, and underwater robotics. His group develops sensor systems for deployments from shallow waters (-40m) to abyssal depths (-5000m), constructing camera/sonar systems for deep-sea observation.

The Oceanic Machine Vision group pioneers sustainable terabyte-scale marine image analysis, contributing to projects like DeepSurveyCam and TuLUMIS for optical surveying and multispectral imaging in extreme marine environments.