This paper presents the technical design and validation of an autonomous surface vehicle (ASV) system capable of robotic search, localization and autonomous tracking of freeranging fish carrying acoustic transmitter tags. The system consists of three identical differential-thrust catamaran vehicles equipped with time-synchronized acoustic telemetry receivers capable of accurate timestamping and decoding of signals received from individually coded tags. Multi-vehicle signal receptions allow time-difference of arrival (TDoA) measurements and are used in position estimators to enable collaborative fine-scale tracking and mapping of the movements of individual fish.The performance of the system was validated through several sea trials culminating in a deployment over several days in a Norwegian fjord where migrating wild Atlantic salmon smolts and sea-run brown trout had previously been tagged using acoustic transmitters in a nearby river. The three vehicles were able to operate autonomously over the entire deployment, carrying out coordinated searches along shorelines, keeping stations at hot-spot locations, and undertaking formation control while pinpointing fish positions. For the total of 5112 tag detections made during the deployment, 17 unique tag identifiers (fish) were registered at least twice, contributing significantly to the ongoing study of migrating salmonids in the area.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2025 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.