How Drones help Marine Monitoring

INTRODUCTION

The intrinsicality of Mother Earth lies in the presence and comprehension of life on it. With water constituting over 71% of the Earth’s surface, marine life on Earth may be traced back to about 3.5 billion years. The depth and volume of the oceans and other water bodies easily allow for the cloaking of several underwater activities. In a broad sense, marine environmental monitoring is, popularly and rightfully, attributed to the investigation and observation of aquatic life as well as any underwater undertakings.

WHY DRONES? THE PURPOSE OF DRONES IN MARINE MONITORING

To a great degree and especially in recent years, marine monitoring and surveillance have witnessed a great surge, as a result of the increase in numerous marine activities. The sufferable increase of aquatic undertakings has led to the appalling growth of marine pollution, which has consequently endangered the marine ecosystem. Uplifting operations of relative monitoring, the groundbreaking introduction of drones and UAV technology into the wide space of the hydrosphere offers convenience and precision over all else. Drawn in with its ability to improve the quality of underwater surveillance operations, the growing need for UAVs in marine services hails from its ability to deliver accurate data processing, secure surveillance operations, perform vigilant marine monitoring, remote sensing, fossil fuel exploration, drone imagery, and significant others. Making this concept of application of drones in marine ecosystems interesting, the onset of underwater drones optimally fuels the quality of marine services. Analogously, drone surveys in marine monitoring checks for the presence and extent of marine pollution in peripheral areas. Incidentally, now, more so than ever, our safest option would be to choose marine drones and UAVs to be our emancipator!

DRONES FOR MARINE MONITORING

Transcending typical barriers of advancement and pushing the limits of development, drone technology has come to dominate the wide expanses of marine surveillance and relevant operations within the marine ecosystem. With the dawn of marine drones, the face of marine engineering has viewed and advocated bountiful opportunities for innovation in the marine and terrestrial environment. Wielding copious aspects of drone technology to the forefront of marine monitoring starts with its abilities of data collection using high- resolution drone imagery, aquatic surveillance, drone mapping, UAV data processing , and relative marine services. UAVs endorse the convenience of monitoring by finding its use to survey areas that may not be directly accessible by man. Studying aquatic life, underwater inspection, and protecting the marine ecosystem are a few features of marine surveillance that have proven to be cost-efficient, accurately measured, well -defined as well as effective and reliable.

• Species-level mapping with drones – Remote sensing is a primitive application of drone technology in terms of marine engineering and innovation. The ability of drones and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to periodically take well -defined images, collect data, and record precise measurements help map marine life as well as vegetation. Drone mapping at the species level assists in acquiring information about marine life and the ecosystem. Drones may also be employed to project this data onto 3D platforms (3D mapping) for improved understanding of the collected data.
• Flight of the drone – One of the principal challenges faced by manned aerial imagery or satellite imagery is the result of low -resolution quality that is not specifically tailored to the needs of the surveillance projects or operations. With the genesis and conception of UAV technology associated with marine engineering, the growth of the said field has shown immense development. Owing to the advantageous and beneficial complexion of drone mapping and imagery, the flight of marine drones is designed to incorporate the best and most favourable features with access to remote areas in marine or terrestrial environments.
• Multiband Imaging –
  

  

  

  A new-age imaging system that harbours the motivation for intensive and focused imagery. Redefining the methods of marine surveillance, multiband imaging enables multi angle polarization to acquire information in the interest of the marine ecosystem. This wondrous approach to polarising light to gain in on the details of inspection coupled with sharp visual sensing amounts to the stability and robustness of multi-band polarization imaging. Marine environments often accommodate challenging operating territories that encompass hazy conditions and harsh cases. On the grounds of these inexpedient situations, drones embedded with multiband imaging sensors (at least 5 bands) such as the RedEdge -MX Blue yield powerful as well as stellar imagery. Consequently, this makes it easy to state the beneficial nature of drones with multiband imaging for marine surveying.

• Data Validation – In actuality, drones are predominantly utilized in the space of surveying and mapping in conjunction with data collection, processing, and validation, adding to the immense magnitude of drones. In special accordance with maritime observation and inspection, the application of UAVs for acquiring, analyzing, reviewing, and verifying data has proven to be dramatically effective. This could be expanded in the sense that maritime engineering and surveying also incorporates the use of underwater drones to ensure holistic mapping of the marine ecosystem. UAV data collection, processing, and validation are intensive processes that entail the details of the marine environment powering the said industry towards rapid growth and development.
• Machine Learning – The storm of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning has thrust upon the world, copious constructive and valuable proficiency. Accompanying drone technology, the applications of these dynamic and vivid innovations in the field of marine surveillance deliberately eases the operations required to be performed. Drone mapping and imagery with the association of machine learning may be so utilized to cultivate optimal algorithms to process the data or images captured. Through Computer Vision, drones, aerial or underwater, are enabled to detect and monitor marine ecosystems, enhancing primitive features in the likes of self -navigation, object tracking, collision prevention techniques, and more.

BENEFITS OF DRONES IN MARINE ECOSYSTEMS

Shining light upon the true essence of marine engineering, quadcopters seek to filter the operations as a means to provide convenience and performance. These aerial and aquatic vehicles establish a sense of perspective to the said industry as they aspire to render time-sensitive and quality -intensive services, above all else. This helps put the aquatic and terrestrial environments on broader platforms that solely aim to reduce marine pollution and cleanse the maritime regions. For good measure, the extent and degree that the supportive and profitable nature of the adoption of drones in marine monitoring has led to are highly impressive!

• Improving Ship Safety & Speeding up Maintenance & Repairs –
  

  

  Oftentimes, ships encounter internal damage or massive masses of harmful structures as a virtue of which it is of vital importance to have access to swift gear such as quadcopters, UAVs, drones, and ROVs. The growing advantages that drones entail – such as their remote sensing feature, well -defined imagery, access to remote areas by the ship or within, monitoring peripheral marine regions, underwater surveillance, internal material checks encapsulate a few instances.
  he characteristics of these mobile vehicles help check, control, manage and maintain the condition of the ship in the sense of reporting analytical data swiftly, detailed and focussed footage of the areas damaged, all- angled monitoring for any harmful structures nearby and relevant operations help speed up maintenance and ensure the safety of passengers or the cargo loaded in the ship.

• Reducing Costs – The rapid rise of drones and quadcopters in recent times is credible to the minimal or at least, reduced cost of production and research. By the same token, drone surveying, mapping, and imagery in the space of marine monitoring and inspection aids to optimistically cut down the cost of surveying, data collection, imagery, and content. Drone surveying and mapping support activities of monitoring accompanying modern techniques that yield more accurate results in a lesser span of time, which ultimately contributes to the reduction of cost.
• Security and Surveillance – Perpetually, marine environments can warrant harsh and unsuitable conditions along with dangerous structures. To eliminate the risk of such dangers, several marine engineering companies are drifting towards the contemporary innovation of drones and UAVs. Essentially, quadcopters could be used to check for precarious ships and other factors that may pose to be hazardous to marine life or promote marine pollution. Drones, along with their highly intensive qualities of in-depth inspection and high-definition imagery as well as wide-angled shots of remote areas, follow through to ensure secure and safe conditions of the marine environments. The data collected and analyzed by these drones make way for a detailed understanding of alarming situations, improper activities, and so.
• Real-time mapping – One of the greatest applications of imagery, especially those captured by drones, is the capability of drones to map those images in 3D. The eye-opening method in which drones fly around certain areas to capture images of respective sights of interest that is to be projected as a series to display a map in real-time, encircles a remarkable benefit of quadcopters. Substantially, in the sphere of marine ecosystems, underwater drones and UAVs have shown striking abilities to process data and project them to obtain informative maps of great value.
• Real-time image processing –
  

  

  

  Adding to the long list of exhilarating merits that come with the application of drones for marine services is the ability of the said quadcopters to implement and perform image processing in real-time. Image processing comprises several methods and stages that, quintessentially, enhance, and filter the captured image to provide restored and sharp images. Critically, this is the need of the hour in terms of marine services! UAVs, quadcopters, and drones are instilled with these clever techniques that enable them to detect, process, and deliver qualitative and magnified images that entail the vital features of marine engineering to the forefront.

With the increase in marine pollution and relevant threatening aspects that are fatal to marine life and marine monitoring, the need for redemption is also thus increasing. The most preserving and redeeming tool comes to be drones, UAVs, and quadcopters. Its utmost applications to deliver and ease marine services enclose military services, research and development services, weather forecasting, search and rescue operations, and delivery activities, apart from marine monitoring and surveillance. To that end, the marine ecosystem has seen the light of drones and quadcopters in the ways of marine services and operations that vitally factor in the progress and growth of the marine industry.