Designing a system for underwater imaging and monitoring of Basking
Sharks ( Cetorhinus maximus )
Abstract
The Basking Shark ( Cetorhinus maximus) is an elusive creature
that possesses a highly-specialised filter-feeding system capable of
filtering around two million litres of water every hour. Learning from
such filters could be instrumental in making new filtration systems for
microplastics or pollutants in the future. However, the specific
filtration mechanism, as well as many other aspects of their morphology
and behaviour, is not well understood. There are numerous difficulties
involved with the study of basking sharks, particularly finding the
sharks in their ocean habitat and observing them without disturbing
them. Here, we propose a robotic platform, the System for underWater
Imaging and Monitoring for Marine Environment Research (SWIMMER, SWIM
for short), for the non-invasive imaging of basking sharks. The robot
was designed to produce high-resolution stereo images at both surface
level and underwater. The imaging payload is carried by a surface robot
to make it easy to monitor, control, and retrieve. The robot is built
low-cost and entirely from off-the-shelf components and 3D printing to
enable us to scale up the robot to a swarm in the future for imaging
from multiple points of view and for other marine applications. In a
single trial, we were able to collect video data from 6 different
basking shark encounters with 9 different individuals, as well as
gathering data about manoeuvrability. This work has the potential to
provide new insights into basking shark feeding behaviour, as well as
potentially making marine swarm robotics more accessible to researchers
everywhere due to the low cost and ease of construction of the SWIMMERs.