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Individual autonomous vehicles have been developed for previous applications, including aquacultural and water quality applications. Development of a fleet of vehicles for more advanced applications required unique uses of sensors as well as communications hardware. Autonomous vehicles can be especially useful for applications that would otherwise be long and tedious for humans to perform. Such tasks include reducing predatory birds from aquacultural ponds, measuring depth, and tracking temperature and chemical gradients. A fleet of autonomous vehicles can complete these jobs more efficiently than a single boat by covering more area and by coordinating the work through the use of communications.