Australia to use drones and detection software to spot sharks

The Australian government is going to leave shark spotting off the coast to drones. These will be fitted with cameras, after which smart software must detect the sharks in the water. That should really improve shark detection.

That reports Reuters news agency. The Australian government will start flying Little Ripper drones off the coasts, starting as early as next month. During the flight, drones record live video, which is sent to a central, where the shark detection software is then run. It then shows the detected sharks on the live images.

The detection software works on the basis of machine learning. According to research, the smart software can spot about 90 percent of the sharks present after training. With human interpretation of the video images, this would only be 25 to 30 percent. Incidentally, the software can also tell the difference between sharks, dolphins, human swimmers and other sea dwellers.

Australia has a relatively high number of sharks off the coast, and people are attacked by sharks almost every year. Better detection could better warn beachgoers not to go swimming.