Development of observing dolphin population method using Small Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL) Unmanned Aerial System (AUV)

Abstract

Indonesia has a very high diversity of Cetacean, observation with good accuracy and precision must be a priority in every observation. Several methods have been developed to help calculate the marine mammal population, one of them by using Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL) Unmanned Aerial System (UAS). VTOL UAS is flown at a certain height to capture photos that contain the number of individuals in a pod, while also mapping the movements and recording their behaviors. The aim of this study was to determine the ideal angle to capture the photos. Several observation angles, 30°, 60°, and 90° were tested Observations were conducted in three sites in Indonesia (Sepa Island, Thousand Islands, Kepulauan Seribu National Park (TNKS); Liang Beach, Maluku Island; and Nai Island Kei Achipelago). The results showed that the angles greatly affected the number of objects in the photograph. For example, on the Island of Sepa, at the angle 30°, 60°, and 90°, the number of dolphins obtained were 3, 9 and 14, respectively. This study did not find any object rejection during observation with VTOL UAS. This study suggests that higher angle of photograph from VTOL UAS increases the accuracy of the observation of marine mammals.

A Drone Study of Sociality in the Finless Porpoise Neophocaena asiaeorientalis in the Ariake Sound, Japan

“…Furthermore, the drone flight techniques employed in the present study were primitive and will need refinement and improvement in future studies. The seasonal angle of sunlight on the water surface is one possible influential factor on visual detection [11]. Notably, the number of individuals observed in the last three sessions was four times larger than that observed in the first three sessions (303 vs. 75 individuals).…”

“…Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, enable more systematic surveys, photogrammetry, and photo-identification with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolutions, alongside lower cost and greater operational flexibility than traditional methods for wildlife research [8][9][10][11][12]. Cetacean observation using UAVs, for example, has major advantages compared to standard ship-based surveys through preventing the negative impacts of ship presence and noise on cetacean behavior patterns, activity budgets, and group size [13].…”

UAV‐assisted real‐time evidence detection in outdoor crime scene investigations

“…Specifically, the drone utilization today is spreading across a wide range of military [4][5][6][7] and security applications [1,2,5,8,9], but also in search and rescue [10,11] and traffic monitoring [10,12,13] operations. Furthermore, the contribution of UAVs is significant in sectors of mapping and land administration [14,15], real estate [4,8], insurance [1,8], construction and infrastructure [8,10], hazardous inspections and detections [8,16,17], agriculture [4,8,10,18], telecommunications [10], media and entertainment [1,11], e-commerce and delivery [19][20][21], ecology and environmental conservation [11,[22][23][24][25][26][27][28], meteorology [4,[29][30][31], and academic research…”

Remote sensing techniques for automated marine mammals detection: a review of methods and current challenges

“…Furthermore, we note that even though manual counts are taken as a reference of the animals detectable in the image, this is not an infallible strategy. The effects of environmental conditions, UAS flight-related variables, and the angle of imagery capture on manual detection certainty of different species should continue to be investigated (see Aniceto et al, 2018 ; Subhan et al, 2019 ). Furthermore, the subclassification of manual detections into probable or possible ( e.g ., Fretwell, Staniland & Forcada, 2014 ) together with cross-validated manual counts among researchers ( e.g., Gonçalves, Spitzbart & Lynch, 2020 ) can help in attaining the best manual detection reference possible.…”