Machine Learning Approaches for Automated Detection of Nephrops norvegicus Burrows in Underwater Surveys

This paper presents an analysis of computer vision methods designed to automate the detection, recognition, and classification of Nephrops norvegicus burrows in underwater videos. The proposed approach seeks to evaluate the accuracy, minimise human error, and standardise the existing manual video analysis process. By leveraging machine learning techniques, the system described in this paper autonomously processes video streams and identifies N. norvegicus burrow openings on the seabed. Additionally, this study investigates data augmentation algorithms to expand an annotated dataset and evaluates the performances of the first results under different configurations.