Droning For Sharks

FreedomFirstThenPeac writes: Apparently Orange County (specifically, Seal Beach area) has found that drones are useful for finding hazards at the beach, the story has a nice drone-shot overhead of a small shark (scale is hard to tell). They also report that it is easy to spot rip tides. The question of the day, how long till someone links imaging processing software with the guidance system so they can get the drones to hover over, and follow along, as sharks patrol off shore? Just another day at the beach, see the shoal of nerds schooling along with their drone controls? They are the ones who are missing all the swimsuit-enhanced normals in the area.

Comments

FAA approval?

[ganjadude]

do they have it????

Re:FAA approval?

[rmdingler]

Although shark-spotting may be a novel use of UAV's (technically, not drones), there are perhaps thousands of as yet unexploited uses for these little technological wonders.

This is great news for the proponents of more widespread FAA approval of the UAV's commercial applications, because for all their potential helpfulness, there is any number of illegal and ill-advised uses that opponents will rail against.

If they could become ubiquitous protectors of human safety, it is more likely the occasional malevolent use would be tolerated.

fill in the blank:

[turkeydance]

"how long till someone links imaging processing software with the guidance system so they__________________?"

Re:fill in the blank: Mad Libs?

[Irate Engineer]

Well, I'll answer "as soon as someone else links your question to a random verb generator."

"how long till someone links imaging processing software with the guidance system so they____obey_____?"

Patrolling

[Livius]

Not just sharks but everyone in law enforcement out on patrol should be recording their activities so that confrontations with citizens can be reviewed objectively and perhaps avoided altogether. Just because they carry frickin' lasers instead of guns should not make a difference.

The sharks really should have body cams but this is the next best thing.

FUD

[fred911]

"Some have worried drones could be used to leer at unsuspecting beachgoers or to see inside the homes lining the shore.

The wide angle lenses on the majority of prosumer/consumer devices make concerns over privacy ridiculous. And finally it's not a drone unless it's flying autonomously. Here it's a quadcopter with FPV video.

     

Australia already uses drones for shark spotting!

[Anonymous Coward]

Australia already uses drones for shark spotting... While it's not automated yet, they are already working towards that. They are in the process of collecting sample images of sharks in the water for a AI to use for comparison.

CorpGovMedia has already demonized drones

[mix_left_and_right]

and so therefore the sheeple don't like drones

Not as of Feb 2015, they didn't

[Anonymous Coward]

Orange County Sheriff's Office has an approved CoA. too bad it's the Orange County in Florida, not the one in California.

However, that list is as of a while ago. They could well have a CoA by now.

"Normals?"

[Type44Q]

"Normal" isn't a noun, you cretin!

Re:"Normals?"

[Lehk228]

it is but OP meant 'normies'

Re:"Normals?"

[Hognoxious]

It is in geometry.

However drone isn't a verb, unless you're talking about sound.

disposable drones

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, the salt will destroy them.

Just buy new ones when they go wonky. DJI Phantoms are about a kilobuck. If they last 2 weeks, that's only 25k/year, which isn't much compared to the salary of the lifeguard looking at the controller. And I'll bet if you committed to buy 25 of them a year, you'd get them cheaper.

The real issue is the cost of the operator.

Re:disposable drones

[gfxguy]

Except that's just one beach, one area covered by a drone - lifeguards save a LOT of people; how many people get bitten by sharks? It's like investing in something to keep you from getting struck my lightening. Australia and parts of Africa might have real shark problems, the U.S. doesn't.

Re:disposable drones

[Jack Griffin]

The majority of life savers are volunteers.

Coast Guard chopper pilot once said....

[cahuenga]

I grew up just South of Seal Beach. Talking to a CG chopper pilot who routinely flew up and down our coast once and he said that if you guys (surfers) could see what I see every day from the air you would never go in the water. Apparently there are quite a few largish sharks out there. Was news to me.

Re:Coast Guard chopper pilot once said....

[gfxguy]

It's just proof that you don't need this surveillance... shark attacks on people, especially in the U.S., are so rare that pursuing this technology is like pursuing anti-lightening hat technology... it's pointless. It's one of those things where people's perceptions are skewed because of movies like Jaws and "Shark Week" on discovery.... every once in a while someone gets bit, usually non-lethally, and it's incredibly rare, but makes a great news story. It's another case of "wrap us all in bubble wrap so we can't get hurt" absurdity.

Re:Coast Guard chopper pilot once said....

[Jack Griffin]

Talking to a CG chopper pilot who routinely flew up and down our coast once and he said that if you guys (surfers) could see what I see every day from the air you would never go in the water.

Meh, Sharks are generally no more of a risk than a dog. If you use a similar common sense in the water that you do in your local dog park then there's nothing to fear.

Re:Coast Guard chopper pilot once said....

[Jack Griffin]

Low risk doesn't mean we ignore it altogether. One of the reasons lightning is less risky is because we can forecast it's presence and take reasonable steps to avoid it for very little effort. Similarly, Sharks attacks are rare, but reducing the risk of a serious injury or death for the cost of a few thousand dollars would seem like a no-brainer. We don't need million dollar Predator drones, but a handful of RC quadcopters with cameras at the most popular beaches sounds reasonable to me.

Lack of medication, or perhaps too much

[grasshoppa]

But I instantly got excited about Shark Donuts.

mmmm...donuts.

Yes!

[nospam007]

"The question of the day, how long till someone links imaging processing software with the guidance system so they can get the drones to hover over, and follow along, as sharks patrol off shore?"

Hopefully drones equipped with lasers to drive them sharks away. It's not fair if only sharks have lasers.

Re:Yes!

[funwithBSD]

We are going to need a bigger drone.

Re:Sharks?

[gfxguy]

Already posted or I'd mod you up. 75 attacks, mostly non-lethal; there are places in Australia and South Africa where they could really use something like this (as they are already spending a lot of money on it); it's a pointless waste applied to U.S. beaches. But hey, shark attacks are great news stories, and with a couple of generations tainted by Jaws and similar movies, it's all about the emotional factor.

Re: yvou fail it!

[AntronArgaiv]

Is this supposed to be intelligible, or is it just the ramblings of a purposeless bot?

Re:Sharks?

[Jack Griffin]

But hey, shark attacks are great news stories, and with a couple of generations tainted by Jaws and similar movies, it's all about the emotional factor.

Yes but those emotions have direct economic consequences, therefore investing a little to protect a lot is worthy of further investigation.

The question is ...

[RockDoctor]

The question of the day, how long till someone links imaging processing software with the guidance system so they can get the drones to hover over, and follow along, as sharks patrol off shore?

And the question of the day before - or at least, the question of the feasibility phase of the programme - is : is swimming at shallow depth a sufficiently common pre-hunting behaviour amongst all types of dangerous sharks in this particular area, that the behaviour is a sufficiently good predictor of attack to be worth the effort.

Or, to generalise it further (because this is not a new discussion), what is the false positive rate (beach alarms blaring "get out of the water", tourists scared and not returning, businesses going bust, but no subsequent attack even amongst the remaining vulnerable population) compared to the false negative rate ("is that a shark, or just ... nah, it's just seaweed" - or electronic version - no alarm, chewed tourist) for this screening test? And yes, I am deliberately using terms comparable to testing medical screens, because this is not a new debate.

While I'm not a shark behaviour specialist, as a scuba diver who first entered the sea in the years when Jaws was still a fresh movie, I have paid a little attention to the subject. Some shark species cruise just below the surface and are highly visible to detection like this. And some don't. Indeed, some individuals of some species would be detectable like this one morning, and change hunting strategies ten minutes later.

The idea has merit - don't get me wrong - but that doesn't mean that it will actually work well enough to be worth the effort on it;s own. Possibly as an adjunct to a "lifeguard drone" service looking for people in trouble in the water, pollution, fights on the beach, etc, it could be justified. But for just this one task - I doubt it would be worth the effort.

There is a good argument to be made that the oceans are the shark's territory, and us humans should be a damned sight more respectful of their right to life liberty and the pursuit of black seal-shaped food. I don't consider the seas to be my own, and I probably spend more time working on them than most people here. Next month my transport to work is likely to change to the extent that I'll need to worry about dying of shark attack instead of hypothermia, if the transport crashes. Concentrates the mind wonderfully, the thought of dying on the way to work.

Droning Maud ?

[RockDoctor]

Isn't that what some Norwegians were exiled to Antarctica for last century? And nobody even thought to ask Maud if she wanted to be Dronned.

[Hat's off to the non-Norwegian Slashdottirs who get the joke.]