Umitron-Eye - Feeding System

Umitron K. K. (Location: Tokyo, Co-founder / CEO Ken Fujiwara, hereinafter Umitron) started proof-of-concept to utilize AI · IoT technologies to automate the valuation of aquaculture movables, inventory value of cultured fish, at costal cage in Oita prefecture, Japan. Through the system, aquaculture farmers will be able to acquire the near-real-time data of movables value at each cage, and we believe that such data is very valuable for farmers to manage their business.

Also, Umitron will verify utilization of the property data of movables to improve the management of aquaculture. As an option to utilize the property data of movables, Umitron will start proof-of-concept of a data service for aquaculture insurance in accordance with actual conditions at fish cages on the ocean.

Objective of this project

Umitron and Oita Prefecture will proceed with development of the system for quasi-real-time evaluation of the movables value of aquaculture, inventory value of cultured fishes in a cage. This program was commenced in “JFY2018 Oita IoT Acceleration Project” adopted on July 27. (Related News: https://pr-en.umitron.com/post/176472857401/oit-iot)

At actual aquaculture site, it is not easy to evaluate the inventory value of fishes under the water, because aquaculture farmers keep thousands of fish per cage installed on the ocean. For movables assessment,  almost all fish farmers in Japan carry out by collecting fishes with a landing net from a cage, then they manually acquire necessary data. Or some large-scale farmers take an underwater camera system to the coastal cage and acquire image data. However, in order to get the assessment result of assets, they need to analyze the image data by manually at their office after coming back from a cage.

In order to simplify those process, Umitron is trying to automate the valuation of movables using technologies such as image analysis by AI. Also, Umitron is now developing the system to get necessary data for analysis remotely by applying the IoT technology cultivated in the development of UmiGarden®.

With this system, aquaculture farmers will be able to acquire the valuable data for business management in near real time.

Verification test program of utilization of aquaculture movables

In addition, Umitron will work together with local aquaculture farmers to begin the efforts to verify the data service for aquaculture insurance according to the actual status of inventories in farming cage as a method of utilizing movables data that can be acquired in near real time.

Current aquaculture insurance is provided based on the asset value that the insurance provider sets in advance based on the past data of growth rate and so on because it is difficult to make continual assessment of practical movables in the actual farming cage. However, since the growth rate of fish varies depending on the time of introduction of juvenile fish, the marine environment where fish preserve is installed, and the business strategy of each producer, the prearranged asset value may differ from actual asset value in the cage. In this project, Umitron will work with aquaculture farms in Oita Prefecture to undertake initiatives including the acquisition of data and proof-of-concept of a data service for aquaculture insurance conforming to actual asset value.

In the near future, Umitron will try to use the quasi-real-time data of movables evaluation acquired from the system developing in this project to provide the service for aquaculture insurance conforming to actual asset value.

Umitron believes that to evaluate and grasp the asset value of fish in the cage will be not only beneficial for business management but will contribute to the stabilization of aquaculture business by providing services that utilize data such as the insurance conforming to actual asset value as well. In addition, such kind of data will be also useful for the evaluation of bank financing.