The project addresses one of the most demanding operations in aquaculture: crowding, which in conjunction with e.g. de-lousing operations has increased in frequency, and is of great significance for salmon mortality and loss.
To harvest fish from a production cage a crowding net is employed to contain and gather a part of the biomass. A production cage contains up to 200 000 individuals, and fish may be subject to crowding several times throughout a production cycle. This handling method has in principle remained the same from the beginning of the industry.
The time has come to take control over the crowding situation and the biomass density to ensure that the fish is not exposed to excessive physical loads. The project will therefore develop technology to be used for quantification and documentation of fish welfare related states during crowding operations focussing on:
- Sensor platform
- Instrumentation and communication
- Operational testing and data collection
- Data processing, analysis and validation
The solution developed in the project will be tested and demonstrated on a fullscale production site.
Partners:
- Nærøysund Aquaservice
- Norbit
- SHM Maritime
- Aanderaa Data Instruments
- Sinkaberg-Hansen
- Kongsberg Maritime
- Argus
- Polyform
- SINTEF Ocean
- NTNU
The project is financed by the Norwegian Research Council and the MAROFF-programme.