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Goal

Currently, fishermen use large nets to fish for flatfish located at the bottom of the sea. A major disadvantage is that when fishing flatfish, other fish and sea species come along. Fishermen then throw the unwanted by-catch off board. The Dutch government has indicated that there will be new law on fishing. A law that states that fishermen cannot throw unwanted by-catch back into the sea. In other words, fishermen are forced to reduce by-catch or catching the flatfish specifically. The main goal is to think of solutions related to selective fishing. The big picture below is a result of co-creation sessions with the client.

Concept development

First initial ideas were about a submarine/ROV catching fish. Because the fish are on the bottom, it is practical and logical to come up with a solution regarding selective fishing close deep-sea floor. A large amount of by-catch is currently being caught because large nets are scraping the bottom. There is absolutely no control over what happens on the bottom. Because the goal is to fish more selectively combined to gain total control, a choice has been made for submarine/ROV concepts.

Result

The PredaSub is an unmanned submarine with the ability to capture flatfish: plaice and sole. The PredaSub is controlled by a fisherman in the ship’s control room. The flatfishes are caught using an AI recognition system which makes a distinction between other fish or marine animals. The flatfishes are sucked up to the PredaSub. The image below demonstrates use-cases and also the technical details of the Predasub.

An article was written by visserbond about this project.

This page does not show detailed steps of this project. For more information please contact me.