The SME Instrument Grant awarded to Skaginn 3X, funded by Horizon 2020, will play a key part in further developing SEASCANN, a cutting-edge onboard vision and grading technology, designed not only to achieve the highest product quality and help prevent overfishing but also create operational savings for its customers. The system has currently been integrated on board five vessels in Iceland.
As greater emphasis is placed on effective and fast onboard fish sorting, Skaginn 3X has been developing an innovative onboard vision system designed not only to grade fish, but to increase throughput and efficiency. “Current technology for onboard grading, sorting and tracking fish species is manual or semi-automatic and labour-intensive. The process is long and can lead to bottlenecks. This results in quality deterioration and fish discards as well as income losses for companies,” said Skaginn 3X CEO Ingólfur Árnason.
SEASCANN addresses the main issues faced on board fishing vessels such as fish handling time, fish quality and productivity. Fishing vessel operators can expect a considerable increase in income with the integration of SEASCANN. The solution is integrated by a unique vision system that automatically grades fish (size, colour, quality and species) with an accuracy of up to 99%, and a cloud- based communication system that gathers and transfers real-time data to fisheries and other stakeholders such as land operators, fish processors and authorities.
With SEASCANN, reporting of fishing activities becomes more reliable and accurate than with the traditional catch reporting estimates. Compliance can be monitored in real time, preventing overfishing.
“SEASCANN allows for real-time data to be reported to land and helps our customers to promote their products and sell them before hitting shore,” Ingólfur Árnason added.
“SEASCANN will have a huge, positive environmental and societal impact. It will provide European countries’ authorities the means to gather reliable and accurate fisheries-related data.”
Skaginn 3X applied for the grant in early 2017. The process was a challenging one as the competition was of a very high standard. Approximately 1300 companies applied for the grant from various industries, of which 64 were awarded grants. Skaginn 3X received valuable input and assistance from companies specialising in project management on European, Nordic and EEA Grants projects, Evris in Iceland and Inspiralia in Spain.
