Body length determination to calculate the individual weight (green frame / red segmentation mask = shrimp detected / length not measured, green frame / green segmentation mask = length measured).

Can computer vision make indoor shrimp farming a clear winner?

The ability to count, size, and health-check shrimp without handling offers benefits for clear water farmers and welfare-conscious consumers, say researchers

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Computer vision software is being used in a bid to improve both the farming environment and financial efficiency of indoor shrimp farms.

The ShrimpWiz project is led by polar and marine research organisation the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), in collaboration with German shrimp farmer Oceanloop.

Shrimp in European supermarkets are almost exclusively sourced from farms outside the European Union, often without any proof that it has been farmed in a welfare-compliant way. ShrimpWiz is investigating how indoor shrimp farming can be established in Europe and around the world that guarantees animal welfare and is economically viable for companies.

In shrimp farming carried out in ponds, operators must regularly remove the animals from the water to weigh them and check their condition. However, this causes stress and reduces animal welfare. According to ShrimpWiz, it is also almost impossible to detect symptoms of stress or disease, as turbidity, even under optimal light conditions, often limits in-situ observation.

Clear water

Unlike pond farming, Oceanloop uses clear water for farming, which has enabled ShrimpWiz researchers and engineers to develop a system that can count shrimp in images using AI-based computer vision software.

The first prototype has been tested at Oceanloop's research and development farm in Kiel, Germany. An advanced smartphone installed above the water surface automatically photographs the shrimp once a minute and transmits the data to a local server. Here, computer vision algorithms count individual shrimp in each image and measure their length with 95% accuracy.

By improving the image quality and using the latest generation of AI-based image processing models, the team was even able to detect visual signs of stress in the animals.

Dr Stephan Ende, ShrimpWiz project coordinator at AWI.

Non-invasive monitoring

Dr Stephan Ende, coordinator of the ShrimpWiz project at the AWI, is convinced that clear water technology is the key to animal welfare in intensive aquaculture.

“The use of computer vision software to measure shrimp enables accurate and non-invasive monitoring of animal welfare and productivity in shrimp farming - 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he explained.

“The clear water technology combined with our Early Welfare Alert software can be the starting point for more objective welfare labelling in the shrimp industry of tomorrow.”

The aim of ShrimpWiz is to develop market-ready computer vision hardware and software for indoor shrimp farming that can capture all the necessary information in a single image, including biomass, stress and - at a later stage - possible diseases.

Economically important

Dr Bert Wecker, chief technology officer for Oceanloop, said: “Non-invasive, real-time monitoring of key farming parameters such as growth, feed conversion, survival and stress will make a crucial contribution to a better understanding of shrimp farming.

“To better understand the needs of our shrimp, we can use these economically important indicators to develop an artificial neural network that takes into account all available farm data, which can easily add up to more than a hundred.”

Tomasz Kowalczyk, founder and chief executive of NeuroSYS, which was involved in developing the algorithm for the project, said technological advances can transform companies and entire industries.

“We are ready to be part of this change and are working to bring the benefits of artificial intelligence and deep learning to the shrimp farming industry.”

Increased efficiency

The consortium sees the development of AI-based software as an opportunity not only to improve animal welfare, but also to increase farming efficiency. Technology can help drive the digitalisation of indoor shrimp farming, which is necessary to achieve today’s retail price levels.

“Proving the technical feasibility of alternative solutions is crucial to meet the growing awareness of customers and stakeholders for more sustainable and welfare compliant shrimp farming,” said Ende.

The ShrimpWiz project is funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) as part of the government’s innovation funding programme.

Early stress detection on shrimp tails (red=stressed, green=not stressed).