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Design and fabrication of a stereo-video camera equipped unoccupied aerial vehicle for measuring sea turtles, sharks, and other marine fauna

The recent commercialization of unoccupied aerial vehicles (UAVs) has facilitated their incorporation into a variety of ecological studies. While UAVs are able to provide accurate visual data of marine species from an aerial perspective, these devices have some limitations that make measuring marine...

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Autores principales: Piacenza, Susan E. H., Piacenza, Joseph R., Faller, Kenneth J., Robinson, Nathan J., Siegfried, Tabitha R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9578584/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36256654
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276382
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author Piacenza, Susan E. H.
Piacenza, Joseph R.
Faller, Kenneth J.
Robinson, Nathan J.
Siegfried, Tabitha R.
author_facet Piacenza, Susan E. H.
Piacenza, Joseph R.
Faller, Kenneth J.
Robinson, Nathan J.
Siegfried, Tabitha R.
author_sort Piacenza, Susan E. H.
collection PubMed
description The recent commercialization of unoccupied aerial vehicles (UAVs) has facilitated their incorporation into a variety of ecological studies. While UAVs are able to provide accurate visual data of marine species from an aerial perspective, these devices have some limitations that make measuring marine animals below the surface challenging. Many marine organisms are often visible from the air, but are deeper in the water column, and current methods cannot measure animals below the surface. Here, we developed and tested a stereo-video camera (SVC) system that was mounted onto a commercially-available UAV. We used the SVC-UAV to conduct remote body-size measurements for two marine species: the green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) and the nurse shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum). When comparing SVC measurements to those taken by hand, the SVC-UAV had a mean absolute error (MAE) of 4.44 cm (n = 6; mean percent error (MPE) = 10.6%) for green sea turtles and 7.16 cm absolute error (n = 1; PE = 3.6%) for the nurse shark. Using a linear model, we estimated the slope of the SVC versus hand measurements for green sea turtles to be 1.085 (±0.099 SE), and accounting for the standard error, a measurement bias was not apparent. Using model selection, based on a global model predicting MAE from animal distance to the SVC and body size, the top ranked model was the intercept-only model. This indicates that neither animal distance nor body size strongly influenced measurement error. Incorporating SVC systems into UAVs can allow for relatively accurate measurements of near surface-dwelling marine species. To our knowledge, there is no other stand-alone SVC for UAVs available that offers similar accuracy and utility.
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spelling pubmed-95785842022-10-19 Design and fabrication of a stereo-video camera equipped unoccupied aerial vehicle for measuring sea turtles, sharks, and other marine fauna Piacenza, Susan E. H. Piacenza, Joseph R. Faller, Kenneth J. Robinson, Nathan J. Siegfried, Tabitha R. PLoS One Research Article The recent commercialization of unoccupied aerial vehicles (UAVs) has facilitated their incorporation into a variety of ecological studies. While UAVs are able to provide accurate visual data of marine species from an aerial perspective, these devices have some limitations that make measuring marine animals below the surface challenging. Many marine organisms are often visible from the air, but are deeper in the water column, and current methods cannot measure animals below the surface. Here, we developed and tested a stereo-video camera (SVC) system that was mounted onto a commercially-available UAV. We used the SVC-UAV to conduct remote body-size measurements for two marine species: the green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) and the nurse shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum). When comparing SVC measurements to those taken by hand, the SVC-UAV had a mean absolute error (MAE) of 4.44 cm (n = 6; mean percent error (MPE) = 10.6%) for green sea turtles and 7.16 cm absolute error (n = 1; PE = 3.6%) for the nurse shark. Using a linear model, we estimated the slope of the SVC versus hand measurements for green sea turtles to be 1.085 (±0.099 SE), and accounting for the standard error, a measurement bias was not apparent. Using model selection, based on a global model predicting MAE from animal distance to the SVC and body size, the top ranked model was the intercept-only model. This indicates that neither animal distance nor body size strongly influenced measurement error. Incorporating SVC systems into UAVs can allow for relatively accurate measurements of near surface-dwelling marine species. To our knowledge, there is no other stand-alone SVC for UAVs available that offers similar accuracy and utility. Public Library of Science 2022-10-18 /pmc/articles/PMC9578584/ /pubmed/36256654 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276382 Text en © 2022 Piacenza et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Piacenza, Susan E. H.
Piacenza, Joseph R.
Faller, Kenneth J.
Robinson, Nathan J.
Siegfried, Tabitha R.
Design and fabrication of a stereo-video camera equipped unoccupied aerial vehicle for measuring sea turtles, sharks, and other marine fauna
title Design and fabrication of a stereo-video camera equipped unoccupied aerial vehicle for measuring sea turtles, sharks, and other marine fauna
title_full Design and fabrication of a stereo-video camera equipped unoccupied aerial vehicle for measuring sea turtles, sharks, and other marine fauna
title_fullStr Design and fabrication of a stereo-video camera equipped unoccupied aerial vehicle for measuring sea turtles, sharks, and other marine fauna
title_full_unstemmed Design and fabrication of a stereo-video camera equipped unoccupied aerial vehicle for measuring sea turtles, sharks, and other marine fauna
title_short Design and fabrication of a stereo-video camera equipped unoccupied aerial vehicle for measuring sea turtles, sharks, and other marine fauna
title_sort design and fabrication of a stereo-video camera equipped unoccupied aerial vehicle for measuring sea turtles, sharks, and other marine fauna
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9578584/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36256654
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276382
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