Author: Lily Keyes | MIT Sea Grant<\/p>\n
Norway is the world\u2019s largest producer of farmed Atlantic salmon and a top exporter of seafood, while the United States remains the largest importer of these products, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. Two MIT students recently traveled to Trondheim, Norway to explore the cutting-edge technologies being developed and deployed in offshore aquaculture.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Beckett Devoe, a senior in artificial intelligence and decision-making, and Tony Tang, a junior in mechanical engineering, first worked with MIT Sea Grant through the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP). They contributed to projects focusing on wave generator design and machine learning applications for analyzing oyster larvae health in hatcheries. While near-shore aquaculture is a well-established industry across Massachusetts and the United States, open-ocean farming is still a nascent field here, facing unique and complex challenges.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To help better understand this emerging industry, MIT Sea Grant created a collaborative initiative, AquaCulture Shock, with funding from an Aquaculture Technologies and Education Travel Grant through the National Sea Grant College Program. Collaborating with the MIT-Scandinavia MISTI (MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives) program, MIT Sea Grant matched Devoe and Tang with aquaculture-related summer internships at SINTEF Ocean, one of the largest research institutes in Europe.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe opportunity to work on this hands-on aquaculture project, under a world-renowned research institution, in an area of the world known for its innovation in marine technology \u2014 this is what MISTI is all about,\u201d says Madeline Smith, managing director for MIT-Scandinavia. \u201cNot only are students gaining valuable experience in their fields of study, but they\u2019re developing cultural understanding and skills that equip them to be future global leaders.\u201d Both students worked within SINTEF Ocean\u2019s Aquaculture Robotics and Autonomous Systems Laboratory (ACE-Robotic Lab), a facility designed to develop and test new aquaculture technologies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNorway has this unique geography where it has all of these fjords,\u201d says Sveinung Ohrem, research manager for the Aquaculture Robotics and Automation Group at SINTEF Ocean. \u201cSo you have a lot of sheltered waters, which makes it ideal to do sea-based aquaculture.\u201d He estimates that there are about a thousand fish farms along Norway\u2019s coast, and walks through some of the tools being used in the industry: decision-making systems to gather and visualize data for the farmers and operators; robots for inspection and cleaning; environmental sensors to measure oxygen, temperature, and currents; echosounders that send out acoustic signals to track where the fish are; and cameras to help estimate biomass and fine-tune feeding. \u201cFeeding is a huge challenge,\u201d he notes. \u201cFeed is the largest cost, by far, so optimizing feeding leads to a very significant decrease in your cost.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the internship, Devoe focused on a project that uses AI for fish feeding optimization. \u201cI try to look at the different features of the farm \u2014 so maybe how big the fish are, or how cold the water is … and use that to try to give the farmers an optimal feeding amount for the best outcomes, while also saving money on feed,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt was good to learn some more machine learning techniques and just get better at that on a real-world project.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the same lab, Tang worked on the simulation of an underwater vehicle-manipulator system to navigate farms and repair damage on cage nets with a robotic arm. Ohrem says there are thousands of aquaculture robots operating in Norway today. \u201cThe scale is huge,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can\u2019t have 8,000 people controlling 8,000 robots \u2014 that\u2019s not economically or practically feasible. So the level of autonomy in all of these robots needs to be increased.\u201d<\/p>\n
The collaboration between MIT and SINTEF Ocean began in 2023 when MIT Sea Grant hosted Eleni Kelasidi, a visiting research scientist from the ACE-Robotic Lab. Kelasidi collaborated with MIT Sea Grant director Michael Triantafyllou and professor of mechanical engineering Themistoklis Sapsis developing controllers, models, and underwater vehicles for aquaculture, while also investigating fish-machine interactions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have had a long and fruitful collaboration with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and SINTEF, which continues with important efforts such as the aquaculture project with Dr. Kelasidi,\u201d Triantafyllou says. \u201cNorway is at the forefront of offshore aquaculture and MIT Sea Grant is investing in this field, so we anticipate great results from the collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kelasidi, who is now a professor at NTNU, also leads the Field Robotics Lab, focusing on developing resilient robotic systems to operate in very complex and harsh environments. \u201cAquaculture is one of the most challenging field domains we can demonstrate any autonomous solutions, because everything is moving,\u201d she says. Kelasidi describes aquaculture as a deeply interdisciplinary field, requiring more students with backgrounds both in biology and technology. \u201cWe cannot develop technologies that are applied for industries where we don\u2019t have biological components,\u201d she explains, \u201cand then apply them somewhere where we have a live fish or other live organisms.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ohrem affirms that maintaining fish welfare is the primary driver for researchers and companies operating in aquaculture, especially as the industry continues to grow. \u201cSo the big question is,\u201d he says, \u201chow can you ensure that?\u201d SINTEF Ocean has four research licenses for farming fish, which they operate through a collaboration with SalMar, the second-largest salmon farmer in the world. The students had the opportunity to visit one of the industrial-scale farms, Singsholmen, on the island of Hitra. The farm has 10 large, round net pens about 50 meters across that extend deep below the surface, each holding up to 200,000 salmon. \u201cI got to physically touch the nets and see how the [robotic] arm might be able to fix the net,\u201d says Tang.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kelasidi emphasizes that the information gained in the field cannot be learned from the office or lab. \u201cThat opens up and makes you realize, what is the scale of the challenges, or the scale of the facilities,\u201d she says. She also highlights the importance of international and institutional collaboration to advance this field of research and develop more resilient robotic systems. \u201cWe need to try to target that problem, and let\u2019s solve it together.\u201d<\/p>\n
MIT Sea Grant and the MIT-Scandinavia MISTI program are currently recruiting a new cohort of four MIT students to intern in Norway this summer with institutes advancing offshore farming technologies, including NTNU\u2019s Field Robotics Lab in Trondheim. Students interested in autonomy, deep learning, simulation modeling, underwater robotic systems, and other aquaculture-related areas are encouraged to reach out to Lily Keyes<\/a> at MIT Sea Grant.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Go to Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"