Work

PIRATE—Precision Imaging Real-Time Autonomous Tracker & Explorer

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: We present PIRATE (Precision Imaging Real-time Autonomous Tracker and Explorer), a fully autonomous unmanned surface vehicle designed to enable self-operating data collection and persistent tracking of mobile underwater targets through the tight integration of acoustic localization, onboard visual perception, and closed-loop navigation. PIRATE employs a single mobile acoustic receiver to estimate target position using time-difference-of-arrival (TDoA) measurements acquired at different times and locations through planned autonomous motion and uses these estimates to drive adaptive vehicle behavior and activate fine-grained visual sensing in real time. This architecture enables sustained target-driven operation, in which navigation, acoustic monitoring, and visual processing are dynamically coordinated based on mission context and localization uncertainty. The system integrates real-time AI-based visual detection and tracking with automatic mission control, allowing visual perception to operate opportunistically within an acoustically guided tracking loop rather than as a standalone sensing modality. Field experiments in a shallow-water environment demonstrate reliable autonomous navigation, single-receiver acoustic localization with meter-scale accuracy, and stable onboard visual inference under sustained operation. By enabling coupled acoustic tracking and onboard visual perception in a fully autonomous surface platform free of external infrastructure, PIRATE provides a practical foundation for fine-scale behavioral observation, adaptive marine monitoring, and long-duration studies of mobile underwater organisms. We demonstrate this advantage with two possible applications.

Source: Journal of Marine Science and Engineering

DOI: 10.3390/jmse14060558

Authors: Dan Zlotnikov, Ohad Ben-Shahar

Institution: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Language: English

Topic: Underwater Vehicles and Communication Systems

Subfield: Ocean Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $3,137

Funder: Israel Science Foundation