Underwater drone for bio-logging of sperm whale

Bio-logging enables zoologists to reveal the many mysteries of free-range animals. It enables valuable scientific data to be gathered without disturbing their daily life, using a small data logger attached to their body. Several zoologists have applied the bio-logging approach to reveal the behavior of sperm whales by attaching data loggers onto their backs. However, no one has been able to observe their predatory activity, which can be considered as fighting and eating giant squids, because of the darkness of the deep sea. In this paper, to tackle the problem, we propose a novel concept with an underwater drone. The underwater drone carries a camera logger and directly attaches it to the area around the mouth of the whale. To implement the concept, we have designed and partially developed a prototype of the underwater drone. The prototype has six thrusters to enable six degrees of freedom omnidirectional motion in water. It has been designed with a maximum speed of 1.2 m/s to chase the sperm whale. The underwater drone will be teleoperated by an operator on a boat through a cable. The details of the prototype design are described in this paper.