Improve Ocean Sensing Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

This paper discusses the day and night capability of a newly developed optical sensing suite flown on manned and unmanned aircraft in Monterey Bay and Santa Barbara, CA, during 2022 to detect marine mammals. New developments of electro-optical sensors integrated on medium and long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can provide cost-effective, qualitative sensing of marine biodiversity, to include species identification. Processing of captured imagery in both day and night applications has proven effective in removing surface-level reflections and background noise, which allows sensing of subsurface marine life to several attenuation lengths. Leveraging bioluminescence as a natural image enhancement phenomenon along with advanced signal processing of imagery captured by this sensing suite improves the quality of nighttime detection and species identification. Concepts and applications for this sensing suite integrated on UAV platforms for ocean food-chain modeling and maritime traffic avoidance are discussed, including deployment strategies for the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary off the California coast.