SmartRAS Demonstration Event

iFishIENCi Project was pleased to present an in person demonstration of the SmartRAS capacities onsite at AquaBioTech Group in Malta on 24th May. Nine local and international aquaculture stakeholders from industry and education with interests in recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) were present for the technical presentation, workshop and the tour to see SmartRAS technologies in action. Participants observed how the technologies of iFishIENCi can be utilized in a research RAS facility for husbandry of Atlantic salmon including:

• iBOSS (including behavioural modelling): control of automatic feeding in a pilot RAS facility.
• FishMET: prediction of growth rates of salmon based on feed consumption and water temperature in pilot RAS facility.
• SmartRAS: state of the art technology in RAS that can be used as pilot scale systems for research.
• Use of these technologies to grow salmon in Malta for research purposes.

This Event was hosted by Demonstration in Operational Environments work leader Freya Robinson and through virtual presentation featured technical presentations from Sergei Budaev and Ivar RØnnestad (University of Bergen) on the Fish Met Model and its development and application in RAS and Nicolas Prost (Bioceanor) on the latest developments of iBOSS.  Luc Gasser (EGM) explained in detail how the fish feeding behavior monitoring in RAS at the demo was carried out, and how this can be used to automate the feeding based on behaviour, and Giovanni Marco Cussimano (AquaBioTech Group) explained how the iFishIENCi technological tools were thus used to carry our feeding experiments on Atlantic salmon at the facility. Participants then went in to the wet lab facilities of AquaBioTech Group to observe the Smart monitoring and control systems in action and to view how these are linked to the data clouds needed to analyse feeding behaviour and control the feeding for optimal efficiency.