Application of Defense Technologies to the Fisheries

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*** 9503656 Simpson This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project focuses on the development of broad bandwidth sonar methods for identifying, in real time, fish populations in open ocean environments. The approach uses sonar technology, developed in defense-related contexts over many years, that hold promise for application to fishery management. Topics that will be developed in the research involve broadband acoustics, spectral decomposition of returns, and nonlinear fuzzy neural network classifiers for characterizing and distinguishing different fish populations. In Phase I of the research, a successful application of several concepts was carried out using freshwater fish populations. Phase II research will extend the work to development of an engineering prototype for broadband fish identification in a marine environment, with both commercial and scientific-research implications Fisheries are becoming an increasingly significant food source. Currently, 30% of the protein consumed by Americans comes from the sea and this percentage is growing. Over the past decade fisheries have experienced more regulation because of bycatch, overcapitalization, and marine mammal endangerment. Because of increased regulation, the scrutiny on commercial fishing and fisheries management has become intense. As a result of these changes, techniques that can automatically and non-intrusively detect, classify, and quantify fish populations are of commercial interest to all segments of the fisheries. ***