New System to Measure Tuna More Accurately and Curb Overfishing

Personal investigador del Campus de Gandia (UPV) y del Instituto de Automática e Researchers from Campus Gandia (UPV) and the ai2 Institute of Industrial Automation and Informatics (UPV) have evaluated a groundbreaking system in Australia that automatically measures tuna size as they swim freely, enabling accurate biomass estimation. The team was directly commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries to conduct real-world tests in collaboration with Australian fishing companies. The aim is to implement automated systems for counting specimens and biomass to reliably control fisheries and curb overfishing.  The contract is overseen by Professor Víctor Espinosa, an expert researcher in Underwater Acoustics at Campus Gandia.

As part of the process, specimens are transferred between two cages: one for transport and another for fattening, where they remain and are fed until sold. The transport cages can hold up to 25,000 specimens, which are then transferred and distributed among several fattening cages.  Currently, the transfer process involves a manual specimen count, where an operator visually inspects a video recording.