Performance characteristics of a multi-directional underwater CCTV camera system to use in the artificial reef survey

Underwater CCTV camera systems are increasingly replaced the traditional net approach of assessing the species, numbers and aggregation patterns of marine animals distributing around the artificial reefs installed in the inshore fishing grounds, in particular, in relation to the biological investigation of behavior and distribution patterns of target fishes. In relation to these needs, we developed a multi-directional underwater CCTV camera system to use in detecting and tracking marine animals in the artificial reef ground. The marine targets to be investigated were independently tracked by using a camera module toward the bottom and four camera modules installed in the interval of in horizontal plane and inclination of in vertical plane of the CCTV system without the overlap of video frames by each camera module. From the results of several field tests at sea, we believe that the developed multi-directional underwater CCTV camera system will contribute to a better understanding in evaluating the effect of artificial reefs installed in the inshore fishing grounds.