Abstract
Autonomous marine pollution-monitoring platforms must operate for extended periods in remote, harsh sea environments with limited maintenance access, making power-source selection a critical design choice. This study develops a transparent multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) framework to compare five candidate power options, hybrid systems, wave energy converters, photovoltaic modules, fuel cells, and small wind turbines, against criteria spanning technical performance, economic cost, and environmental impact. Criterion weights are derived objectively using the entropy method, and the alternatives are ranked using two complementary MCDM techniques: VIKOR, which identifies compromise solutions closest to an ideal point, and ELECTRE, an outranking approach based on concordance/discordance pairwise comparisons. Both methods consistently select hybrid power systems as the top option, with wave energy ranked second. Solar and fuel-cell solutions fall in intermediate positions, while small wind turbines rank lowest across evaluations. A sensitivity analysis that perturbs criterion weights by ± 10%, ± 20%, and ± 30% confirms that the ranking order remains stable over a broad range of weighting scenarios. The proposed entropy–VIKOR–ELECTRE framework provides a quantitative and defensible basis for selecting robust power systems for long-endurance autonomous marine pollution-monitoring deployments.
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This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China-Shandong Joint Fund for Marine Science Research Centers (U1806214), the project was funded by the ‘Research on Key Technologies for Marine Space Utilization in Offshore Oil & Gas and Other Marine Energy Projects under the New Situation’(CCL2024RCPS0096PSN).
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All methods were carried out in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations. The Ethics Committee of Shandong University of Science and Technology in China approved the study. We confirm that this paper involves online questionnaire surveys completed by university learners. Informed consent was obtained from all subjects and their legal guardian(s). Informed consent was obtained from all experts involved in the study.
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Qu, L., Liu, T., Wang, Y. et al. Multi-criteria ranking of power supply options for long-endurance autonomous marine pollution monitoring platforms using entropy-weighted VIKOR and ELECTRE. Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-53060-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-53060-y
