Boxfish Robotics explores how Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) can support the repeated collection of research-grade coral reef monitoring data across reef habitats, restoration areas, protected sites and artificial structures. Read more >>
The Boxfish AUV is designed to help coral reef scientists collect repeatable, high-quality imagery, environmental data and survey video. Precise navigation, terrain following, hovering capability and obstacle avoidance allow the vehicle to operate safely around complex reef structures while maintaining consistent image quality.
Supporting Repeatable Reef Surveys
Research teams increasingly need to survey larger areas, revisit sites more frequently, validate habitat maps, monitor restoration outcomes and collect the long-term datasets required to support conservation and management decisions. Traditional diver-based surveys remain essential, but can be limited by depth, time, weather windows, site accessibility, diver availability and the need for consistent repeat measurements.
Boxfish AUVs can help collect repeatable transects across the same sites over time, reduce reliance on diver time for repetitive survey work, extend observations across more reef patches and monitoring stations, capture imagery consistently for photogrammetry and AI workflows, combine visual data with environmental sensor data, and ground-truth remote or airborne reef mapping with in-water observations.
Collecting Detailed Visual & Environmental Data
Boxfish mission planning supports waypoints, grid patterns and transects, with adjustable mission parameters such as vehicle pitch, speed, lighting, distance from objects, depth and altitude. RAW image capture is available on the Boxfish AUV, helping retain maximum image detail for photogrammetry, habitat mapping and scientific analysis. Precise camera controls and adaptable mission planning allow survey geometry, viewing angle and image overlap to be optimized for each project. When operated at low altitude, the system can capture imagery with sub-millimeter resolution suitable for detailed assessment of coral condition, growth and structural complexity.
Its applications include coral nursery monitoring, benthic habitat imaging, artificial reef inspection, fish transects, environmental monitoring, restoration assessment and protected-area validation. Boxfish’s ability to support environmental sensors also makes the system suitable for teams seeking to collect visual and environmental data together.
Long-Term Deployment & Custom Development
Boxfish Robotics offers the resident ARV-i platform for monitoring programs that require recurring surveys over periods of months or years. The platform is designed to dock autonomously, recharge while docked and transfer collected data. It can remain deployed in the field and complete scheduled surveys without requiring vessel mobilization for every mission. This operating model can support more frequent surveys, reduce operational costs and help researchers establish consistent long-term records of reef condition, restoration progress and environmental change.
For custom development, the Boxfish AUV Research Kit provides an open platform with API access for developing mission-specific behaviors, species recognition, AI workflows and new autonomy capabilities. These development options allow reef monitoring programs to move beyond standard approaches to data collection.
Read ‘Autonomous Coral Reef Surveying with Boxfish AUVs’ for more information.
