Development of a Towed Optical Camera Array System (SSS: Speedy Sea Scanner) for Sea Environmental Monitoring

Various methods have been developed and used for monitoring marine benthic habitats, such as coral reefs and seagrass meadows. Basically, field transects, such as Line Intercept Transect (LIT), Photo Line Intercept Transect (PLIT), and Video Transect (VT), are the most widely used methods as it is easy and simple to conduct as well as less costly [1]. However, these in-situ visual method requires long sampling time due to the small coverage of the methods. In addition, 3D information of the seabed cannot be obtained. On the other hand, marine biologists and ecologists have increasingly relied on imagery from platforms such as autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) for marine monitoring [2], [3]. The underwater imagery obtained by AUVs can be used to make high quality 3D model of seabed, classify and count the abundance of various species in an area. However, the cost for development is still high and expert is necessary for the operation of vehicles. In addition, the AUV systems usually use mono or stereo cameras for the observation, therefore, the coverage of the observation is not wide.