Nearly two weeks ago, beachgoers in New York witnessed shorebirds attack drones that were deployed to patrol sharks and assist struggling swimmers. Now, the University of California Santa Barbara’s Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory (BOSL), plans to initiate a new drone project aiming to monitor shark activity below the ocean waves.
The initiative called SharkEye is not only a research program but also strives to become a community safety tool backed by artificial intelligence (AI). The SharkEye are AI drones that will issue precautionary warnings to those who have signed up for alerts on potential sharks in the sea.
Text Alerts
The safety tool uses video technology to collect data and analyse shark behaviour. If a shark is spotted, it will immediately send a text message to around 80 people who have registered – including lifeguards, surf shop owners, and parents or guardians of children taking lessons in the areas monitored.
Additionally, the video recording is supplied to an AI-based computer vision machine learning model. The AI technology allows computers to quickly scan through the information collected via drone images and videos. The information trains AI to detect great white sharks near Padaro Beach, near Santa Barbara.
The great white sharks in California have, in the past, been reported to have attacked civilians considerably. Additionally, these sharks are mostly juvenile. In 2022, there was a report that between 2017 and 2021, California lifeguards noticed a fivefold increase in great white shark sightings with most of them being young. Additionally, a team of researchers from California State University visiting a stretch of Long Beach encountered 40 juvenile great white sharks within two miles, hanging out in areas the researchers described as “nurseries.”
Initiative to Keep Beachgoers Safe
In an effort to keep beachgoers safe, various regions across the world have set measures and protocols to detect sharks such as officials and lifeguards observing activities via a screen constantly recording the scene. However, such initiatives have proved challenging as human eyes have to constantly stay alert and focused on the screen. Therefore, AI drones like SharkEye may allow for quick detection of sharks and issue rapid alerts to beachgoers.
The tech also strives to overcome the challenge for drone pilots to differentiate sharks from paddleboarders, seals, dolphins, and kelp. This is where AI comes in, it’s trained to track sharks more precisely than the human eye behind screens. SharkEye plans to make its model free and available for researchers to amend or build on, and to create an AI-powered app that’s easy for people like lifeguards and drone hobbyists to run their footage through.
