Remote monitoring system based on ocean sensor networks for offshore aquaculture

Recently, the need for offshore aquaculture has become increasingly important in raising migratory fish species, such as, tuna and mackerel, in an offshore environment. Moreover, offshore fish cages are located 2-5 km offshore with water depths ranging from 40 to 100 m. Hence, visiting the fish cages directly and daily to obtain the growing environmental data of migratory fish species is time-consuming and increases cost. Therefore, a system to remotely obtain growing environmental data on a regular basis without visiting the fish cages is necessary. The objective of this work is to develop a remote monitoring system based on ocean sensor networks for offshore aquaculture, and to verify the effectiveness of the developed system. The remote monitoring system is composed of two main components: ocean sensor networks installed on fish cages in the ocean and a monitoring center located on land. The fish cages are located approximately 2 km offshore. Thus, the data sensed in the fish cages are transmitted to the monitoring center through RS-485, Zigbee, and CDMA communications in the ocean sensor network, and displayed in the monitoring center. In order to verify the effectiveness of our system, tests to remotely obtain the growing environmental data on tuna were performed. Experimental results show that our developed system can obtain the growing environmental data of the tuna remotely and in real-time. Therefore, scientists as well as fish farmers will be able to remotely obtain the growing environmental data of migratory fish species in offshore fish cages.