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Droning For Sharks

Posted by timothy on from the on-the-horizon dept.

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.

6 of 48 comments (clear)

  1. Australia already uses drones for shark spotting! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  2. disposable drones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:disposable drones by gfxguy · · Score: 2

      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.

      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
  3. Coast Guard chopper pilot once said.... by cahuenga · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Coast Guard chopper pilot once said.... by gfxguy · · Score: 2

      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.

      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
  4. Re:Yes! by funwithBSD · · Score: 4, Funny

    We are going to need a bigger drone.

    --
    Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra