SeaLens: Autonomous marine robot for seaweed and shellfish aquaculture

行业挑战：近岸沿海水域具有高度动态的物理、化学和生物环境，由于极端天气、潮流和人类活动，这些环境可能会发生巨大变化。监测这一环境为有效建立和管理水产养殖业务提供了关键信息。例如，在确定新的水产养殖地点时，必须首先描述当地海洋环境的特征，以便符合水质标准，建立有效的系泊设计，并提供环境条件的基线。典型的监测方案依赖于现场采样，而现场采样的数据在时间上是稀疏的，而且通常是不规则的（例如，取决于船只的进出、天气和潮汐）。另一方面，长时间连续测量的半永久性监测仪器（例如在浮标或系泊上）能够捕捉到时间变化。然而，由于其高昂的资金成本（约2万至100万英镑），它们很少存在，并且几乎只被大型组织（例如港务局，研究机构或大型水产养殖企业）使用。解决方案：PEBL CIC正在为中小型水产养殖组织开发一种负担得起的（总成本< 2000英镑）自主监测系统。该系统采用模块化设计，集成了用于监测各种水质参数的传感器，如海水温度、盐度和pH值，以及录制视频和图像。从该系统收集的数据使海洋水产养殖组织受益：-通过早期检测和响应，最大限度地减少因疾病、极端天气和污染造成的物种死亡率。-在了解当地环境的基础上，优化海洋农场的选址和设计。-根据数据驱动模型，通过预测生物量、健康指标和市场价值，制定业务战略。-通过监测当地海洋环境和生物多样性的长期变化，促进可持续发展目标的管理。可行性研究将在英国5个不同的水产养殖地点设计、建造和部署该系统，以测试其稳健性和捕获数据的质量。

INDUSTRY CHALLENGE:Near-shore coastal waters have highly dynamic physical, chemical and biological environments which can be subject to dramatic changes due to extreme weather, tidal currents and human activities. Monitoring this environment provides crucial information for the effective set-up and management of aquaculture operations. For example, when identifying new aquaculture locations it is essential to first characterise the local marine environment in order to comply with water quality standards, to establish effective mooring designs and to provide a baseline of the environmental conditions.Typical monitoring programs rely on in-situ sampling, where data is temporally sparse and is often irregularly sampled (e.g. dependent on vessel access, weather and tides). On the other hand, semi-permanent monitoring instruments (e.g. on a buoy or mooring) that measure continuously over long periods of time are able to capture temporal variations. However, due to their high capital costs (\> £20k - 1M) few of them exist and the ones that do are almost exclusively used by large organisations (e.g. harbour authorities, research institutes or large-scale aquaculture businesses)SOLUTION: PEBL CIC is developing an affordable (total cost < £2,000) autonomous monitoring system for small and medium sized aquaculture organisations. The system is modular in design and integrates sensors for monitoring various water quality parameters, such as seawater temperature, salinity and pH as well as recording video and images. The data gathered from this system benefits marine aquaculture organisations by:- Minimising mortality of species due to disease, extreme weather and pollution through early-onset detection and response.- Optimising marine-farm siting and design based on understanding of the local environment.- Developing operational strategy through the prediction of biomass, health indicators and market value based on data-driven models. - Enabling the management of sustainability objectives by monitor long-term changes to the local marine environment and biodiversity.The feasibility study will design, build and deploy the system at 5 different aquaculture locations across the UK to test its robustness and the quality of data captured.