Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SEASCANN (Integrative vision and real-time communication system for onboard sorting of fish species)
Berichtszeitraum: 2019-09-01 bis 2020-08-31
Sustainable fisheries management is essential to the preservation of wild fish stocks, with seafood continuing to be one of the most diverse and versatile food group available. But seafood has the propensity to spoil at quicker rates than many other centerplate proteins.
Technology can be utilized to minimize waste and bycatch and at the same time maximize transparency and traceability, resulting in sustainable fishing practices, helping to monitor and estimate sustainable catch levels.
There is a strong need to modernize and continuously improve onboard fisheries technology in order to boost quality and value, while managing catch pressure for sustainability purposes. Fishing vessels need to handle large amounts of catch and process quickly to lock in freshness due to perishable nature of fish. Effective and fast onboard fish sorting is also important for accurate regulatory reporting to measure catches per species and control total allowable catches (TAC).
Current technologies for onboard grading, sorting and tracking fish are manual or semi-automatic and, therefore, suffer several technical limitations related to speed requirements, grading high number of species, variation of size and shape of each species, variation of the optical characteristics of each fish within seasons and harsh environment on board. This results in quality deterioration, fish discards as well as reduced profitability for fisheries players.
SEASCANN is integrated by a unique vision system that automatically grades fish by size, color, quality and species, benefitting from a cloud-based communication system that gathers and transfers real time data to fisheries and other stakeholders.
SEASCANN is the first onboard fish sorting machine on the market, which uses a vision unit to automatically grade fish based on size, color, quality and species – therefore offering the advantages of more efficiency and increased sorting accuracy, in addition to real-time information on the quantity and quality of the catch.
SEASCANN gives a descriptive information of each fish and other metadata and is the first highly effective sorting solution that operates onboard vessels offering real-time data.
The end users of SEASCANN can be categorized into four groups:
1. Fisheries firms.
2. Land operators and processing companies (first buyers of the catch supplied by the fishing vessels).
3. Research bodies, regulators and agencies (NGOs, independent bodies and government).
4. Fish inspectors and national authorities.
There is a need for increased economical sustainability in the fishing industry and SEASCANN will have a huge positive environmental and societal impact. Where it will provide European authorities the means to gather reliable and accurate fisheries-related data, collected by fishing fleets during fishing days, reducing the current expenditure.
Technology can be utilized to minimize waste and bycatch and at the same time maximize transparency and traceability, resulting in sustainable fishing practices, helping to monitor and estimate sustainable catch levels.
There is a strong need to modernize and continuously improve onboard fisheries technology in order to boost quality and value, while managing catch pressure for sustainability purposes. Fishing vessels need to handle large amounts of catch and process quickly to lock in freshness due to perishable nature of fish. Effective and fast onboard fish sorting is also important for accurate regulatory reporting to measure catches per species and control total allowable catches (TAC).
Current technologies for onboard grading, sorting and tracking fish are manual or semi-automatic and, therefore, suffer several technical limitations related to speed requirements, grading high number of species, variation of size and shape of each species, variation of the optical characteristics of each fish within seasons and harsh environment on board. This results in quality deterioration, fish discards as well as reduced profitability for fisheries players.
SEASCANN is integrated by a unique vision system that automatically grades fish by size, color, quality and species, benefitting from a cloud-based communication system that gathers and transfers real time data to fisheries and other stakeholders.
SEASCANN is the first onboard fish sorting machine on the market, which uses a vision unit to automatically grade fish based on size, color, quality and species – therefore offering the advantages of more efficiency and increased sorting accuracy, in addition to real-time information on the quantity and quality of the catch.
SEASCANN gives a descriptive information of each fish and other metadata and is the first highly effective sorting solution that operates onboard vessels offering real-time data.
The end users of SEASCANN can be categorized into four groups:
1. Fisheries firms.
2. Land operators and processing companies (first buyers of the catch supplied by the fishing vessels).
3. Research bodies, regulators and agencies (NGOs, independent bodies and government).
4. Fish inspectors and national authorities.
There is a need for increased economical sustainability in the fishing industry and SEASCANN will have a huge positive environmental and societal impact. Where it will provide European authorities the means to gather reliable and accurate fisheries-related data, collected by fishing fleets during fishing days, reducing the current expenditure.
Testing and fine-tuning made on SEASCANN equipment was done in real-life conditions and a database has been designed, built and tested. The product is still a prototype that is in a field test and is now in the final stages, nearly ready to be launched onto market. SEASCANN has yielded very promising results and can now identify the main three species tested, cod, haddock and pollock with acceptable high accuracy. The foundation has been laid to increase the number of species analyzed and other features will be an easy add-on if requested. The stakeholders e.g. the captain and the crew, the land-based operations, the authorities, and the end customer can access the information and benefit from the available information.
SEASCANN will not only promote sustainability by preventing overfishing, it will also preserve product quality for producers and create operational savings for its users. Sustainability will allow us to continue to fish the oceans for years to come, whilst feeding the world’s ever-growing population. There is a continuous increase in demand for seafood products and SEASCANN will of course play an important part in increasing sustainability in the sector. The past two years have been used to create awareness for SEASCANN and to establish SEASCANN as a necessary product in the future of sustainable fishing. Further steps will be taken in launching the product onto the market and introducing the benefits of this product.
SEASCANN will not only promote sustainability by preventing overfishing, it will also preserve product quality for producers and create operational savings for its users. Sustainability will allow us to continue to fish the oceans for years to come, whilst feeding the world’s ever-growing population. There is a continuous increase in demand for seafood products and SEASCANN will of course play an important part in increasing sustainability in the sector. The past two years have been used to create awareness for SEASCANN and to establish SEASCANN as a necessary product in the future of sustainable fishing. Further steps will be taken in launching the product onto the market and introducing the benefits of this product.
The need for improved fishing vessels and equipment to maintain product quality and promote sustainability in the fishing sector has been well established over the past years. Sustainability will allow us to continue to fish the oceans for years to come, whilst feeding the world’s ever-growing population.
The innovative approach of SEASCANN promotes the sustainable exploitation of stocks, which will directly impact on key factors like:
• Decrease of fish discards (100% yield)
• Decrease of non-commercial species/sizes.
• Achieve the Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY).
The fast assessment of the catch allows the captain to move to another area if the catch is found to be made up of juveniles or non-commercial species. SEASCANN complements other selective fishing techniques, used by trawlers in their fishing activities (such as sensors, big net mesh sizes, etc.).
Furthermore, technologies, methods and standards have been developed for collecting an ever increasing array of marine data. However, major gaps still exist across a range of important parameters (both chemical and biological to ecological) necessary for understanding ocean health. SEASCANN will contribute to this purpose with reliable and standardized ecological data. Our innovative technology can provide the means for the ruling authorities to tap into the yet unleashed potential of real-time data collected by the fishing fleet, so that the current expenditure can be dramatically reduced.
The innovative approach of SEASCANN promotes the sustainable exploitation of stocks, which will directly impact on key factors like:
• Decrease of fish discards (100% yield)
• Decrease of non-commercial species/sizes.
• Achieve the Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY).
The fast assessment of the catch allows the captain to move to another area if the catch is found to be made up of juveniles or non-commercial species. SEASCANN complements other selective fishing techniques, used by trawlers in their fishing activities (such as sensors, big net mesh sizes, etc.).
Furthermore, technologies, methods and standards have been developed for collecting an ever increasing array of marine data. However, major gaps still exist across a range of important parameters (both chemical and biological to ecological) necessary for understanding ocean health. SEASCANN will contribute to this purpose with reliable and standardized ecological data. Our innovative technology can provide the means for the ruling authorities to tap into the yet unleashed potential of real-time data collected by the fishing fleet, so that the current expenditure can be dramatically reduced.