Salmon industry professionals are set to boost accuracy, profits and sustainability with a camera and laser based salmon measuring tool.
OptoScale’s biomass measuring tool is nominated for Aqua Nor’s Innovation Award for its ability to identify individual fish from a group in a cage.
Sven Kolstø, co-founder and CEO of OptoScale, said: “Traditionally, biomass measurement has been important for the fish farmer in order to get the most accurate estimate of slaughter weight. Accurate slaughter weight means improved profitability – the more accurate your estimate, the better price you will get.”
OptoScale uses a stereo camera (two cameras that have slightly different field of view) to achieve a better depth of vision and of the circumference of the fish.
Norway-based OptoScale also uses a laser beam which is sent out in a striped pattern, rather than the traditional LED light.
By lighting the fish with a striped pattern, more information can be gathered than when using the traditional lighting, since the curves of the light stripes change with the fish’s circumference. The stripes will change even more if they hit a fish that is in front of or behind the fish that is being measured.
With daily measuring updates, it is hoped that fish farmers will be able to quickly determine weight gains and losses to help regulate feeding, noise levels and other variables that impact fish stress and growth.
Mr Kolstø added: “Today’s technology often has a margin of error of 3 to 5 %. The fish grows at a rate of about 1 % each day. When the margin of error is larger than the growth rate of the fish, the weight data from the cage has no value beyond estimating the slaughter weight at the end of the production cycle. Our objective is to achieve only 1 % deviation by the end of the year – and with such precision the industry can use biomass measuring as a decision support from day to day.”
With working prototypes in the sea and three systems in production, OptoScale is focusing on programming and algorithms with the aim of being able to estimate the weight of 1000 fish per day.
The technology will be showcased at Aqua Nor in August.
