Automation of Fish Net Pen Operations

Ocean Farm Technologies, Inc. of Searsmont, Maine is proposing a NOAA Phase I SBIR feasibility study of an automated system for net pen manipulation to facilitate operations of proprietary AquaPodTM fish containment system. Automated manipulation of the AquaPodTM net pen will allow remote operation of mortality collection, cleaning, maintenance, inspection and harvesting operations. Human interaction with these operations will be reduced, and where human interaction is necessary the work can be done from the surface, reducing as much as possible the amount of scuba diving required. This feasibility study will include testing of prototype automation systems on a full sized AquaPodTM at a commercial fish farm, as well as analysis of costs of this system compared with existing submerged net pens and traditional suspended net pens systems.