Developing a swarm of low-cost floaters to acoustically perform in-situ fish stock assessment in remote areas

27 Sep 2023
09:45-10:30

Developing a swarm of low-cost floaters to acoustically perform in-situ fish stock assessment in remote areas

The Schmidt Marine Fisheries Initiative SOUND project studies in-situ ocean monitoring which enables tracking of marine life via low-cost floaters that drift with the water current with one actuated degree of freedom – depth control, while autonomously performing acoustic fish detection and fish biomass assessment activities (for instance, spreading the swarm throughout the water column versus focusing the entire swarm at a specific depth)​. The aim is to achieve simple deployment requiring no additional permits, non-invasive aquaculture support, assisting fishermen and reducing bycatch – especially in remote and developing areas​. The project’s technological contribution lies in two inter-related areas: ​underwater acoustics and marine robotics, with a novel underwater acoustic scheme for fish stock measurement that will combine probabilistic analysis with machine learning integrated into a novel design of an autonomous low-power and low-cost floater as a platform for marine exploration​, resulting in a TRL6 prototype for selected pilot tests. This lecture focuses on the development of initial floater prototypes and field trials which took place in Šibenik, Croatia and Eilat, Israel.

Breaking the Surface