Despite having extensive coastal zones and ranking third globally for renewable water resources, the US produces only 1% of its aquaculture products. Consequently, over 90% of seafood consumed in the US is imported, leading to a $14 billion annual seafood trade deficit. US fish farming operations are often perceived as reactionary, labor-intensive, and inefficient. While advancements in AI, robotics, and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) have been widely adopted in other agricultural sectors, their integration into US aquaculture remains limited. This highlights the urgent need for a coordinated effort to innovate and secure the future of aquaculture in the US.
This presentation will outline our vision to create the fish farms of the future through Collaborative Intelligence (CI)—seamless collaborations between AI-driven systems and human operators. We see this as essential to overcome key barriers to the adoption of AI technologies in aquaculture: fish farmers’ general risk aversion to new technology due to high initial costs and the typically low-profit margins of aquaculture operations.
We will discuss two projects that exemplify our initial endeavors to realize this vision: the Hybrid Aerial/Underwater Robotic System (HAUCS) and Intelligent Resource Efficient Pond Aquaculture (IREPA). These projects are supported by the NSF National Robotic Initiative (NRI) and CPS programs, with funding from USDA-NIFA.