Project

OptiFish

The aim of this project is to bring all vision and artificial intelligence techniques from the current state of the art of catch monitoring to a directly applicable maturity level, by integrating them with other modalities to increase the degree of effectiveness, efficiency and robustness.

The aim is to have products ready for the market that meet both the public needs in terms of marine protection and fisheries sustainability, and those of the sector (management: workload reduction, tools for fisheries management and quality).

This objective is achieved on the one hand by counting, measuring the allowable length and estimating the weight of the catch and by-catch, using vision and artificial intelligence systems; on the other hand, by producing feedback to the fisherman in real time, enabling management and quality control of the catch (e.g. rapid DNA for diseases, multi-spectral cameras for estimating the fat content of the catch and for estimating the survival rate of by-catch). The application can be used for different types of fisheries with different methods of catching in different parts of European seas.

OptiFish will lead to better integrated fisheries management and more economically viable and sustainable fisheries. Several fishing vessels will set up a high-tech automatic catch registration system in collaboration with Wageningen Research.

Publications