Fish farms are an important aspect to food security and are currently the source for the majority of fish consumed globally. An important aspect to maintaining a fish farm is tracking water quality, especially dissolved oxygen (DO) levels. The current practice to monitor the DO levels is labor intensive and error prone as it requires manual sampling of every pond in a farm multiple times a day.
The Hybrid Aerial/Underwater Robotic System (HAUCS) is an innovative Internet of Things (IoT) approach to data collection on aquaculture fish farms. The system consists of robotics systems to support automated data collection to the cloud, an AI prediction model, and an app to serve as a user interface between the system and the farm manager. This system also scales well with larger farms as the more expensive components (DO probes and drones) can be used on multiple ponds with the maximum range limited only by the flight time of the drone.
This presentation will discuss the effort to develop a platform-independent HAUCS payload that can be easily integrated into different drones and ground vehicles. The prototype was first tested at HBOI campus. Subsequently the system was tested at Touch of Nature (ToN) research aquaculture farm at Southern Illinois University (SIU). These tests will also be discussed in the presentation