Development of a high-speed, megapixel benthic imaging system for coastal fisheries research in Alaska

We present a detailed technical description of a new high-speed megapixel benthic imaging system developed by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game with design assistance from Wood's Hole Oceanographic Institution's HabCam project. The towed, bottom tending camera sled features a GigE Vision™ camera with a 1360 × 1024 pixel sensor that streams 16 MB/s of image data to the tow vessel over commercial off-the-shelf Gigabit Ethernet hardware and an armored fiber optic tow cable. The camera images a 1.1 × 0.83 m area of the bottom four times per second under strobe lighting that eliminates blurring in the images (motion artifacts) while towing 5–8.5 km/h. The camera sled was developed for scallop stock assessment but appears to be useful for fine-scale habitat mapping, ground-truthing acoustic data, benthic ecology research, and fishing gear effects studies as well.