Seadetect

Collisions between ships and large cetaceans are the number one reason for unnatural death for marine mammals, which are currently classified as threatened in the IUCN red list of endangered species. The SEADETECT project proposes an innovative solution to limit this risk.

Financed by the European LIFE program, SEADETECT is a new project aiming to develop and demonstrate innovative solutions to significantly reduce the risks of collision between ships and marine mammals, as well as unidentified floating objects (UFOs). The objective is to detect cetaceans as far in advance as possible in order to modify ship routes if necessary and avoid collisions.

This detection system consists in combining three elements :

• An automated on-board “DETECT BOX” composed of several sensors : daylight visible band color camera + near infrared and thermal infrared band camera + LIDAR + RADAR and a powerful data fusion and AI system to merge the data and classify the detection.
• A real-time passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) network at sea (buoys) to detect and geolocate marine mammals and allow the identification of protected corridors for vessels.
• A real-time detection-sharing and alert system (REPCET®)

Beyond participating in a project that makes sense for the protection of nature, the whole Nexvision team is very excited to realize this system alongside experts such as SIREHNA, GREENOV, QUIET OCEANS, ONERA, DIADES MARINE, VERITAS, LA MERIDIONALE, TETHYS, ROYAL BELGIAN INSTITUTE OF NATURAL SCIENCES and the UNIVERSITY OF GHENT.

More details here.