Abstract: Monitoring aquatic debris is of great interest to the ecosystems, marine life, human health, and water transport. This paper presents the design and implementation of AQUABOT – a vision-based surveillance robot system that integrates raspberry pi, robotic fish model along with camera and other sensors for debris monitoring in relatively calm waters. AQUABOT features real-time debris detection and coverage-based rotation scheduling algorithms. The image processing algorithms for debris detection are specifically designed to address the unique challenges in aquatic environments. The rotation scheduling algorithm provides effective coverage for sporadic debris arrivals despite camera’s limited angular view. In this paper, we focus on the design of debris detection and mobility scheduling algorithms running on a single RASP node. The sensing results of multiple nodes can be sent back to a central server via the long-range communication interface for fusion and human inspection.

Keywords: AQUABOT, Debris, RASP.