Fish finding with autonomous surface vehicles for the pelagic fisheries

Unused or unmanaged catch represents more than 40 % of the global marine catches. Autonomous systems for search and detection may reduce the environmental footprint of commercial fisheries by improving the targeting accuracy and also reduce the amount of fossil fuels that today are consummated by conventional fishing vessels during their search for fish. We have developed and demonstrated a concept for an autonomous fish finding system for pelagic fisheries. The prototype is based on integration of commercially available system components (autonomous surface vehicle “Sailbuoy” with two-way satellite link, 200 kHz echosounder, embedded computer). Special software for onboard real-time signal processing was developed. The complete autonomous fish finding system was verified during field trials in Norway in 2016.