Digital Scanning Sonar for Fish Feeding Monitoring in Aquaculture

Feed waste results in increased production costs to the cage fish farming industry and produces negative environmental impacts. A computerized system, consisting of digital scanning sonar and current meter, was developed for monitoring, assessment, and optimization of the fish feeding process. The system can detect and monitor quantity and direction of wasted food pellets and also predict the trajectory of pellets through the water column. Pellets detected and tracked by digital sonar provide feedback information to the feeding operator and provide guidance on how to redirect or modify the feeding process in order to minimize feed waste. Digital scanning sonar is user friendly and cost effective. It can be integrated as a major component of automated or semi-automated feeding systems on aquaculture farms. The system performed well and successfully enumerated individual pellets under the aquaculture cages. Presence of high concentrations of non-farmed fish outside of the cages resulted in the degradation of the ability to successfully detect and count waste pellets. Refinement of techniques and detection and filtering algorithms is necessary consistently detect waste pellets in the presence of unwanted fish echoes.