Lionfish-Killing Drones to Target Invasive Species Joseph Baucum - Pensacola News Journal
go to original July 24, 2017

Yuan Wang, co-founder of American Marine Research Company, details the progress his company is making in developing automated drones to identify and catch lionfish. (PNJ.com)

There’s a potential game changer brewing in the struggle to eradicate lionfish from the Gulf of Mexico.

A quartet of engineers is developing drones to autonomously detect and collect lionfish at depths beyond the scope of human divers. The team, a startup called American Marine Research Co., arrived in the Florida Panhandle on June 9.

By the end of July, the company’s goal is to be able to harvest enough of the sea creatures that the business turns a profit by supplying the fish to the restaurant industry.

“We’re building an artificial predator for a species that doesn’t have a natural one,” said Yuan Wang, 23, co-founder of American Marine Research.

Wang said the aim is to design a robot so adept at neutralizing its target that out of 100 lionfish in a given area, it would pinpoint and corral 95, at the very least. He added that the company also hopes to program the drone to distinguish between other types of fish so as not to decimate other populations such as red snapper or grouper.

The company has labored on several prototypes. The priorities for the technology include ensuring the drones can move properly and descend to the appropriate depths, possibly deeper than 1,000 feet below sea level. The intent is to ultimately remove the need for a human user. The largest robot is about the size of a mini fridge and the tiniest is smaller than an office trash can.

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