Project summary

All existing AI species detection models are closed set which declares that they only can detect species only within their trained datasets so if it finds something new it either skips it or mis identifies. So far existing systems work with separate visual and acoustic sensors and they are not functioning when one fails. A 2025 review in Machine Learning for Bioacoustics proves that multimodal fusion for field detection is an open direction. The present from DeepSeaNet results prove that only 43.4 percent accuracy for finding new species. This project will evaluate a true benchmark for existing models, how they fails, and what are their weaknesses.

What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?

This project will answer can a joint model identify a new species that they never had in training and does this differ when it comes to different environments and would it need to be re trained.

How will this funding be used?

Project fund will used to model training and benchmark, personal runway, and dataset access fees and for conference submission fees.

Who is on your team? What's your track record on similar projects?

Two people in team: Sithum Vikasitha Jayasinghe and Chethiya De Silva. We co-founded PartnerLabz a self funded software company which now has international clients and PathFinder which is an AI product where Chethiya built the core AI engine himself. We are both close to graduating in 2026 from Birmingham City University, BSc Software Engineering, studied remotely.

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?

Currently we requested Plymouth Marine Lab for data access and If we don't get a reply, we will move to FathomNet, which has a public dataset, so the project can still proceed. A bigger risk is if our benchmark shows the current models don't fail the way we expect the result would still be valid and useful, just different from our hypothesis and would report it honestly rather than force the data to fit.

How much money have you raised in the last 12 months, and from where?

Started raising money recently so no initial money raised yet.