During the first week of February 2022, the University of Balearic Islands – Marine Robotics Team has been working in the Cabrera archipelago. The campaign was aimed at searching and mapping the invasive species Halimeda incrassata. This task is included in the #INVHALIproject, funded by Fundación Biodiversidad.
The Turbot AUV and the Xiroi ASV provided very good performance, autonomously recording large datasets of stereo images in shallow waters ranging from 1 to 20 meters depth. The data will be used for training automatic detection algorithms and also for building photomosaics to monitor the evolution of the threat.
The team is part of the SRVlab, one of the #PLOMEproject partners, thus the experience of this campaign and the data collected are an excellent start for the tasks we have been assigned in this new project.
