Coastal Marine Environment Monitoring with UAVs Project

Monitoring of coastal marine environment using an in-house developed unmanned aerial vehicle

Objective

• The proposed project aims to design and develop an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that can operate in marine environments to be used for a wide variety of applications, including potential fishing zone identification and oil spill detection.

Description

• The proposed project aims at developing an electric hexacopter unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) of the 25 kg class that is capable of operating from ships/boats for coastal zone monitoring applications, including potential fishing zone (PFZ) identification, oil spill detection, search and rescue, and the UN sustainability goal of Integrated Coastal Zone Management.

Impact

• The long-term goal of the proposed project is for UAVs to become commonplace platforms used in the fishing communities at large. The proposed technology can strongly benefit recovery operations post an oil spill, and management of pollutant dispersal in the ocean in general. The developed technology can become an invaluable asset to weather modeling and prediction.