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Underwater drone to study Australia's massive coral reef

2024-06-27 22:35:00, Kosova & Bota CNA
Underwater drone to study Australia's massive coral reef
Underwater drone, source VOA

An underwater drone is using artificial intelligence to help monitor Australia's vast coral reef that is bleaching as a result of warming oceans. As Voice of America correspondent Deana Mitchell reports, researchers are closely following the process of coral bleaching in the world's largest reef ecosystem. When the water is too warm, the algae that live inside the coral die off, causing the coral to turn white.

An underwater drone, called Hydrus, is using artificial intelligence to study coral reefs. Australia's Great Barrier Reef is experiencing ecosystem change, leading to bleaching as a result of ocean warming.

Scientists are using underwater drones to better understand the impact of climate change.

Melanie Olsen directs the ReefWorks program at the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences.

“Dive teams are limited in how deep they can go. So we are using robotic tools to take samples in the depths of the ocean, to have access to where human life is endangered by crocodiles, sharks and other creatures."

The Hydrus drone operates autonomously over a distance of more than 8 kilometers in three hours. It can dive up to 3 thousand meters and has a high definition 4k camera.

Equipped with sonar, the drone's navigation is done through artificial intelligence. Peter Baker, with Advanced Navigation, says the drone is building a 3-D map of coral reefs.

"In collaboration with the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences we are creating the coral map. Coral maps will help to reveal the changes that will serve to create the patterns of the entire coral belt. The drone precisely goes to the same place several times and takes photos from the same position with high accuracy, which is very difficult to achieve by divers".

Since 1998, the coral reef has experienced six bleaching events. If the waters cool, the bleached corals can recover. But if ocean temperatures remain high for too long, corals could disappear. Scientists say that the bleaching of corals is related to climate change./ VOA





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