Umitron developed a new smart fish body measurement system for aquaculture farmers called UMITRON LENS® that uses AI and IoT technology. Using a portable camera paired with a mobile app, Lens automatically measures fish size underwater and all of the data is accessible in the cloud.

Being able to track fish during their growth cycles is an essential part of farm management. The current way of measuring fish growth involves sampling an adequate number of fish frequently and this is not only a labor-intensive operation for farmers but can also cause stress to the fish, sometimes resulting in injuries or even death.

Lens utilizes small stereo cameras and artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically measure fish size in the cages and connects to the internet to store data in the cloud. In this way, the process of checking fish growth is made much easier for farmers, helping them to reduce their workload, manage their operations more efficiently and, in turn, increase their profits.

“We have been developing this system in Oita prefectures, Japan since 2018, focusing on improving the user experience on actual farming sites, gathering useful data sets from measurement operations and increasing the accuracy of the size estimations. In using small size stereo cameras to enhance usability, we realized there was a problem of lower accuracy, but we have developed a unique algorithm to overcome this and achieve a high fish body measurement accuracy level,” the company said.

Umitron aims to create a sustainable aquaculture model in the future by integrating the data from all its services such as its smart auto feeder UMITRON CELL, fish appetite analysis system UMITRON FAI, high-resolution ocean data service UMITRON PULSE and this new smart fish body measurement system UMITRON LENS.

“We will gradually roll out Lens to aquaculture farmers from next year onwards and are seeking new project partners who are interested in Lens and a future aquaculture integration model,” the company said.