METHOD FOR AUTOMATED REAL-TIME ACQUISITION OF MARINE MAMMALS

摘要

A method for automated real-time acquisition of a marinemammal in a natural body of water in the surroundings of avessel includes detecting a thermal signature of the marinemammal is detected by imaging thermographic scanning of awater surface with an infrared camera system so as to generatean image data stream of consecutive images. A modularprocessing of the image data stream is performed includingperforming an image pre-processing, detecting local changes incontrast in the images, classifying the detected local changesin contrast so as to detect a pattern of the thermal signatureof the marine mammal, localizing the classified thermalsignature of the marine mammal, verifying the classified,localized thermal signature of the marine mammal anddocumenting the classified, localized and verified thermalsignature of the marine mammal.