Abstract
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are increasingly becoming a popular tool in the observation and study of marine mammals. However, the potential capabilities of these vehicles regarding autonomous operations are not being fully exploited for passive underwater acoustic monitoring in marine mammal research. This article presents results from the development of a UAV system equipped with an underwater acoustic recorder aimed at assisting with the monitoring of harbour porpoises in Special Areas of Conservation in the United Kingdom. The UAV is capable of autonomous navigation, persistent landing, take-off and automatic data acquisition at specified waypoints. The system architecture that enables autonomous UAV flight including waypoint planning and control is described. A bespoke lightweight underwater acoustic recorder (named the PorpDAQ) capable of transmitting the results of fast Fourier transforms (FFT) applied to incoming signals from a hydrophone was also designed. The system’s operation is successfully validated with a combination of outdoor experiments and indoor simulations demonstrating different UAVs capable of autonomously navigating and landing at specific waypoints while recording data in an indoor tank. Results from the recorder suggest that lightweight, relatively low-cost systems can be used in place of heavier more expensive alternatives.
Highlights
An increasing demand for natural resources from human activities has driven the expansion of interaction with the earth’s oceans
The performance of the data acquisition device was tested in an indoor tank (Figure 9) at Loughborough University while autonomous flights on the quadcopter were tested outdoors
The system described enables the autonomous navigation of Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in marine environments and the autonomous recording of marine mammal vocalisations
Summary
An increasing demand for natural resources from human activities has driven the expansion of interaction with the earth’s oceans. While the negative effect of anthropogenic activities on marine mammals in the oceans is reasonably documented, the lack of frequent data on distribution and abundance on a large scale makes it difficult to determine the effects of man-made activities on harbour porpoise’s abundance and distribution [35] This issue extends to the assessment of the effectiveness of mitigation measures to improve the conservation of cetaceans in specific areas [30]. The system could find some application in real-time mitigation for known noisy activities where the use of marine mammal observation and passive acoustic monitoring is readily present This development is split into two parts; the development of software to enable autonomous waypoint navigation and recording on a UAV and the design of a data acquisition recorder which will be installed on the UAV.
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