Blue Control Centre: An innovative project that integrates data from various sources to help fish farmers
How can we connect the fish farming platform?
Between 1961 and 2017, the average annual growth rate of the world’s food fish consumption was 3.1%; this was faster than the 1.6% annual growth rate of the world’s population during the same time, and it was higher than the 2.1% annual growth rate of all other animal protein foods (meat, dairy, milk, etc.). The amount of fish consumed per person for food increased by around 1.5% annually, from 9.0 kg (live weight equivalent) in 1961 to 20.5 kg in 2018.
Suppose you ask how it is possible to increase production while successfully guaranteeing product quality and animal welfare. In that case, I can say that it is essential to monitor and control the production process closely. Information technologies are entering the field of aquaculture, and the concepts of “intelligent fish farming” and “precision agriculture” are beginning to take shape (Antonucci & Costa, 2020; Wang et al. 2021). The basis of these concepts is the application of the principles of control engineering to animal production, thus helping to improve the monitoring, control and documentation of biological processes and, therefore, supporting the farm manager’s decision-making. These applications would require systems for monitoring animals (e.g. computer vision for animal movement) and the environment (e.g. sensors and networks), as well as data interpretation and decision-making tools (e.g. decision support systems, Internet of Things).
At the Blue Control Centre, we are focusing on monitoring and regulating the aquaculture production system and its impact on the environment and animal welfare. Environmental monitoring will assess basic water quality variables (e.g. oxygen, temperature, ammonia), as well as input variables (e.g. feed, fertiliser) and production system variables (e.g. tank level, water flow speed). In the last phase, we will evaluate the possibility of incorporating computer vision to record the movement of the animals and assess their well-being.
In that way, connectivity is becoming a fundamental asset for all sectors. Many experts say that the next industrial revolution will allow everything to be connected and form part of a core, value-orientated and highly technological ecosystem. Aquaculture is a very demanding process requiring a fully balanced and healthy ecosystem.
Changing one of the many parameters of an aquarium can have tragic consequences if done incorrectly. Our proposal defines a global approach to creating an interconnected aquaculture system at scale.
So, our main goal is to create a scalable, connected, software-based platform to help with the day-to-day operations of different types of aquaculture. This platform should be deeply rooted in the principles of real-time connectivity. It will provide the communications and sensing infrastructure needed to provide actors with the data they need to make informed decisions. To better focus on each platform’s expected impacts, we have divided the rest of the chapter into specific aspects that our platform must fulfil.
The role of Ubiwhere in this project is to create a platform that will collect, process and display the data from sensors and cameras installed at the fish farming facilities. We will take advantage of the knowledge we have from the Urban Platform, where we see the information presented in a single control panel, allowing municipalities to obtain the data needed to make informed and targeted management. In this way, they can ensure the decisions are well-founded and provide empirical reports on their impact. Users can customise their dashboards by choosing information from any available source and combining it into different domains, such as mobility and environment, with the ultimate goal of reducing operating costs, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and, as a result, improving the quality of life of its citizens.
