Since 2010, scientists from the Tropical Marine Science Institute (TMSI) at the National University of Singapore and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (Smart) Centre for Environmental Sensing and Modelling (Censam), have been harnessing advanced technologies to monitor environmental stressors, including algal blooms.
The project is funded by the National Research Foundation.
“The sea, as a research field, is a very challenging environment to collect data. Autonomous fleet of vehicles are able to collect relatively more data, more accurately as opposed to traditional methods,” said Mr Tawfiq Taher, a senior research manager at Smart Censam.
“Due to the harsh nature of the sea, the robots are required to be robust and resilient to the extreme weather conditions.”
Local fish farms here have been badly hit by algal blooms in recent years. Just two years ago, 77 farms were affected by the blooms which wiped out 500 to 600 tonnes of fish – about one-tenth of local farms’ yearly produce that year.