The recent OceanTech Summit in Baltimore, Co Cork heard about the latest progress of an ongoing initiative to help protect marine wildlife in Irish waters, as Silicon Republic reports.
Afloat.ie previously highlighted the Smart Whale Sounds project, which has the goal of creating a near real-time detection model for cetacean species — whales, dolphins and porpoise — using instruments attached to a specially designed data gathering buoy.
Emer Keaveney, co-founder of Smart Whale Sounds and executive director of ORCA Ireland, explained to the summit how the project is using AI and machine learning algorithms “to detect different animals within the soundscape and to pick out different call types, and train these algorithms so that one day we have an automated multi-species classification system”.
In the longer term, it’s hoped that the technology could provide the basis of an early warning system for marine traffic in areas where whales are present, or in marine planning — particularly of offshore renewable energy projects.
Silicon Republic has more on the story HERE.