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 90˚ in horizontal plane and inclination of 45˚ 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.

This paper describes a automatic video surveillance system(AVSS) with long range and 360˚ coverage that is automatically rotated in an elevation over azimuth mode in response to the TTM(tracked target message) signal of vessels tracked by ARPA(automatic radar plotting aids) radar. This AVSS that is a video security and tracking system supported by ARPA radar, CCTV(closed-circuit television) camera system and other sensors to automatically identify and track, detect the potential dangerous situations such as collision accidents at sea and berthing/deberthing accidents in harbor, can be used in monitoring the illegal fishing vessels in inshore and offshore fishing ground, and in more improving the security and safety of domestic fishing vessels in EEZ(exclusive economic zone) area. The movement of the target vessel chosen by the ARPA radar operator in the AVSS can be automatically tracked by a CCTV camera system interfaced to the ECDIS(electronic chart display and information system) with the special functions such as graphic presentation of CCTV image, camera position, camera azimuth and angle of view on the ENC, automatic and manual controls of pan and tilt angles for CCTV system, and the capability that can replay and record continuously all information of a selected target. The test results showed that the AVSS developed experimentally in this study can be used as an extra navigation aid for the operator on the bridge under the confusing traffic situations, to improve the detection efficiency of small targets in sea clutter, to enhance greatly an operator s ability to identify visually vessels tracked by ARPA radar and to provide a recorded history for reference or evidentiary purposes in EEZ area.