The Institute of Marine Engineering of the National Research Council (CNR-INM) carries out activities in the field of renewable energy from marine sources. In this context, the ULYSSES and ULYSSES 2030 projects mainly conduct studies on the exploitation of energy from tidal currents. One of the activities currently underway is to design and build a scale model of a vertical axis turbine for experimental studies on the production of energy from marine currents, with the aim of conducting studies both on the hydrodynamic performance and on the conversion and control system of the energy captured. The document describes main technical requirements for the realization of the Power Take-Off system (PTO) of a model-scale tidal turbine and its sensors equipment, to be used for experimental research. The configuration of some examples of existing scale model turbines was studied, and then a layout of the ULYSSES turbine was proposed compared to those well-proven configurations. The ULYSSES turbine will be a horizontal axis turbine with tree fixed blades rotor connected directly to a Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator (direct-drive PMSG). The turbine houses instrumentation to measure rotor thrust and torque. Additionally, an incremental encoder is integrated to allow for servo-control of the PMSG as well as to provide position and rotational velocity measurements.