Characterizing Wildlife Response to Biomimetic and Conventional Underwater Vehicles

Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are a promising alternative to divers for scalable collection of natural ocean ecology data. However, these robots may disturb local fauna and cause drastic behavioral differences compared to other monitoring techniques, decreasing their value as scientific tools. A promising prospect is to make AUVs that are more biomimetic, with the hope that taking on the form and behavior of a non-predatory animal may reduce adverse responses. We present the first dataset comparing fish disturbance in response to a conventional thruster-driven AUV, a sea turtle inspired flipper-driven AUV, and a diver. Experiments were conducted at a biodiversity hotspot in a Caribbean reef, and images of the scene were analyzed using computer vision to localize and study fish behavior change. Both AUVs cause measurable changes in fish behavior. Although no between-robot differences remain significant after correction for multiple comparisons, point estimates generally favor the biomimetic AUV, motivating larger studies capable of resolving modest effects and further design changes to optimize for disturbance. We also observe larger responses during diver transects than during AUV transects, although this exploratory comparison is based on a small diver sample with several confounds. While conclusions must be taken as preliminary due to operational and experimental limitations, this study provides the community with a first known dataset and benchmarks to quantify the behavioral impacts of biomimetic robots for ecological monitoring in the wild.