Every August, the Discovery Channel airs it’s Shark Week Series, watched by millions of viewers. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Oceanographic Systems Laboratory developed a vision-enabled autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to track and capture up-close footage of a great white shark off the coast of Cape Cod, MA which was used in a Discovery Channel special.
In footage from Mexico that was captured in 2013, a great white was vividly swimming up rapidly to bite the robot leaving teeth marks in the hull of the equipment.
The Discovery Channel
The imaging camera used for Shark Week footage, also known as “SharkCam,” used six GoPro cameras that provided a 360° field of view. After tagging a marine animal, the robot equipped with an acoustic communication system, modem, and transducer, followed signals emitted from the transponders at depths up to 330 feet. The navigation system was able to determine the range, bearing, and depth of a tagged animal and then close in to a pre-determined distance and position to film it swimming and interacting with its environment.
Interestingly, the robotic lens captured images of different shark species swimming together and interacting with other fish in repetitive loops across the ocean floor. The cameras also found that sharks use a more power-based swimming motion, rather than the gliding motion that was once presumed.
The data collected from SharkCam has enabled researchers to study the behavior of marine animals in new ways including the way they interact with their natural habitat and may provide a useful tool to follow other sea creatures such as sea turtles.
Robotic lenses are a vital component to underwater vehicles. Universe Optics can help engineers design custom lenses for underwater cameras, robots and other scientific cameras.