Small Unmanned Air System for Safe, Accurate, and Reliable Marine Mammal Tagging

SBIR topic N242-097 identifies an opportunity to improve the “capacity to collect robust data with minimal disturbance to marine mammal species” by leveraging advancements in Small Unmanned Air Systems (SUAS), and specifically seeks a SUAS system capable of “accurate deployment of Type A anchored tags”.  Current tag deployment procedures typically use poles or launchers with very limited range, thus requiring a close approach with a boat to the marine mammal of interest.  Use of SUAS to deploy tags has the potential to reduce hazards to marine mammals and humans involved in the tagging operations, reduce harassment of the marine mammals, improve the consistency of tag deployment through advanced automation, and increase our knowledge of animal behavior and location.  To address this opportunity, Barron Associates has teamed with marine mammal experts who have expertise in deployment of Type A tags, and with a US-based manufacturer of NDAA-compliant SUAS to develop the Marine Mammal Tagging System using SUAS (MMTS-UAS) to accurately and reliably deploy percutaneous tags on marine mammals.  MMTS-UAS will employ a human-automation teaming paradigm in which the system automates many aspects of the process, but a human expert remains in the loop to make/review key decisions and to trigger final deployment of a tag at a suitable time. MMTS-UAS is designed to minimize negative impacts on the marine mammals, create a safe operating environment for the humans involved in the operation, and enhance the efficiency and reliability of tagging operations. Safety is of paramount concern and will be addressed through multiple features of the system design and operation including (1) optimization of the system to minimize size and weight, which minimizes hazards (especially during hand launch) and has additional benefits including lower cost and ease of storage, (2) a novel, compact hand-held platform to provide a physical barrier for hand launch and recovery, (3) advanced automation to enhance the robustness of the system, accuracy of tag deployment, and precision of recovery operations on a moving boat, (4) elimination of the need for boats to approach very close to marine mammals to perform tagging, and (5) redundant software and mechanical safety systems to prevent unintentional discharge of the tag launcher.  MMTS-UAS will leverage advanced guidance and control approaches developed by Barron, including methods designed specifically for landing on moving boats that account for factors including boat motion and disturbances due to winds and turbulence. MMTS-UAS will also leverage Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) methods previously developed by Barron to detect and track marine mammals, to recommend tag placement locations, to automatically maintain the desired aim point and to quantify uncertainty in the tag placement given current conditions (e.g., atmospheric turbulence and waves).