Edge Technology Based Artificial Intelligence System for Ocean Patrol and Surveillance

The oceans are a principal source of biodiversity, and with a global seafood market worth over $120B, they’re a crucial resource to almost half of the world’s population [1]. Costing society $23.5B annually, overfishing caused by illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUU fishing) contributes significantly to this depletion of fisheries. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, IUU fishing “threatens marine ecosystems, puts food security and regional stability at risk, and is linked to major human rights violations and even organized crime.” In some locations, government-employed observers accompany boats to prevent IUU fishing [2]. However, even in wealthy countries, observers only monitor a minuscule percentage of fishing vessels. For example, in the expansive region of the Pacific Ocean from Indonesia to Hawaii, just 2% of fishing operations are monitored by observers. To combat the problem of IUU the experimenter developed an Edge Technology Based Artificial Intelligence System for marine protected areas (MPAs) using low-cost edge computing devices to track illegal fishing activity through AI-based image recognition services. The product is a solar-powered, inexpensive, edge computing and monitoring device mounted on buoys with a video camera and processor to analyze images using machine learning models. The model detects vessels, monitors their illegal activity in the oceans, thus reducing the overexploitation of fishing. The edge device does processing locally and sends relevant data to the database, reducing the need for processing vast amounts of images & videos centrally. A stealth Autonomous Aerial Vehicle (drone) with a pre-programmed flight path collects the data from buoys and reports predictions to ground stations providing 24x7 surveillance capabilities.The product has a broad range of potential applications to detect overfishing, piracy, smuggling, and instances of ocean pollution, including oil spills. It can also be deployed for marine surveillance, primarily supporting the national defense. The immediate application for this product is the continuous surveillance and protection of targeted MPAs by alerting illegal fishing activities to governments and NGOs in real-time.