One of the limitations of understanding the status of coral reefs globally is being able to routinely monitor them in a way that produces conformal actionable data. The Australian Institute of Marine Science has developed an Autonomous Surface Vessel (ASV) designed to undertake the equivalent of reef perimeter and reef flat surveys. The system comprises of a fully autonomous 3m catamaran designed to accurately sea-keep in dynamic reef waters, such as along a reef front. The platform is equipped with depth-following dual cameras which use Machine Learning to survey the reef. The vessel will be trialed in March 2025.
In parallel to the vessel development, modelling has been undertaken to assess various operational scenarios to understand how the system can be deployed to scale monitoring in a cost-effective manner.
The system has the potential to supplement manual survey methods in a scalable manner that allow for non-technical users to collect science grade conformal data. For the first time it becomes possible to undertake science grade observations using scalable system utilizing existing in-country resources. This approach, once validated, has the potential to provide the level of global information required to develop regional strategies to conserve and sustain coral reefs.