"Pepe": a novel low cost drifting video system for underwater survey

Worldwide, the utilization of underwater video technologies has increased exponentially over the last decades for scientific and commercial purposes. The high quality and diversity coupled with the cost reduction of equipment’s facilitated its utilization among scientists. Remote Operated Vehicles (ROVs) and Drift Cameras (DC) are the most used remote operated vehicles. In Argentina, despite cost reductions the use of remote operated vehicles is still scarce. On this work, a DC equipped with a novel system to measure objects is presented, together with data acquisition protocols and processing and a precision & accuracy test. The DC was built at low cost and operated satisfactorily from small boats up to 82 m deep in a wide range of visibility conditions. It was possible to identify and measure animals up to 2 cm of total length with an accuracy of 8%, estimate their abundances accurately and geolocalize any object or animal captured on video imagery with an error of 5 +- 2,16 m.