A small, unmanned vessel operating ahead of a fishing trawler, scanning the upper water layers, can guide the vessel to areas with the highest concentrations of the tiny zooplankton species Calanus.

Against this backdrop, researchers from SINTEF and NTNU, through the research centre SFI Harvest have been testing the use of unmanned and autonomous vehicles on, under and above the water surface. The aim is to help fishing vessels locate commercially viable concentrations of Calanus without wasting time and fuel searching for them.