MINI-ROVS IMPROVING AQUACULTURE OPERATIONS  

Aquaculture operations involve a number of tasks being handled on a daily basis to ensure farm integrity. These tasks include but are not limited to net inspections, mort retrieval, size grading, and fish monitoring. The proposed presentation offers a case study analysis of the use of Deep Trekker mini-ROVs to perform daily inspection tasks at Canadian salmon aquaculture sites.

Reason

Salmon farms require divers to perform tasks and inspections but associated costs can be high. Mini-ROVs are revolutionizing the way that managers go about their daily operations without hiring divers until there is a true need to have hands below the water. Mini-ROVs are able to perform net inspections, observe fish behaviour and bridge the knowledge gap between employees and what takes place below the surface while simultaneously recording the footage.

Cases

The case studies include 2 major aquaculture companies; Marine Harvest and Agrimarine to demonstrate the ways that a mini-ROV can improve operation efficiency and reduce costs.

Conclusions

Findings suggest that the use of mini-ROVs have significantly reduced farm managers' needs to hire dive teams. With their ROVs, Agrimarine and Marine Harvest can perform daily inspections and ensure that there's an issue before calling in divers.

If infrastructure integrity is compromised, the faster a problem is identified the sooner it can be fixed, improving efficiency and reducing loss. Mini-ROVs can be deployed immediately, eliminating the need to call divers and wait for them to arrive. In cases where net integrity is compromised, hasty inspection is key to ensuring zero loss.

Dropped equipment is either ignored because costs associated with retrieving it are not worth it or divers are called and costs incurred. With ROVs, managers and employees have been able to retrieve equipment without the need to call help.

The use of mini-ROVs has given managers the ability to teach employees about the underwater aspects of the farm as well as identify and explain any problems to a dive team in cases where divers are needed.

Biography: Kiara Vallier has been working in Aquaculture industry with Deep Trekker Inc., visiting farms, doing demos and exploring cages with mini-ROVs. The ROVs are being used in over 68 countries across the world to improve aquaculture operations in a variety of ways. She has written numerous pieces about the use of ROVs in the industry and produced several short videos.

Category: Oral Presentation