New shark detecting buoy alerts lifeguards via smartphone – watch video

Researchers in Australia have developed a device that can detect a nearby shark in the water and alert lifeguards to its presence.

Australian tech company Shark Mitigation Systems has teamed up with communications firm Optus and together they’ve come up with the Clever Buoy – a buoy anchored to a box on the sea floor that emits sonar signals into the surrounding water to detect incoming sharks.

A processor inside the buoy analyses the reflections picked up by the sonar signals and can figure out if they came from a shark-sized object nearby. The buoy is so clever that it can tell a signal from a shark apart from that of a dolphin or a seal.

Clever Buoy has been tested at the Sydney Aquarium and off the coast of the Abrolhos Islands in Western Australia and have identified nearby sharks successfully. Once it’s been perfected, it’s hoped a number of these buoys will be lined up offshore at popular beaches in Australia. If any one of them pick up on a signal of something shark-sized moving in a shark-like manner, they’ll alert the local lifeguard by sending an update to their smartphone. Then it’s everyone out of the water until the shark signal has faded.

It’s hoped the technology will be available for deployment on Australia’s beaches midway through 2015.