Master and Specialization projects

(Make an appointment to get more information about the projects. Contact: Jo Arve Alfredsen)

Robotic fish tracking - integration of unmanned surface vehicle and acoustic fish telemetry

Gaining a fundamental understanding of the behaviour and spatiotemporal distribution of fish and other marine living resources stands high on the international research agenda because it relates directly to our ability to devise sustainable management strategies for the oceans and the global marine environment. Scientific progress in this area is treasured and of broad societal value. This project targets developing enabling technologies that will create novel opportunities within fish and fisheries research.

Figure: Robotic fish tracking system.

Autonomous vehicle systems and acoustic fish telemetry are research areas of strong tradition and merits at the Department of Engineering Cybernetics. The project aims to enable close integration of these areas to create novel platforms for robotic search, localisation and tracking of marine life, migrating fish, and other similarly small and evasive underwater objects. The research will move current operational limits of fish/underwater object tracking and contribute significantly to making new innovative technology available to researchers and enable new discoveries within movement ecology and the marine sciences in general.

The USV Otter and AutoNaut vehicle platforms are available at the department and under development with our own controls, sensors and instruments, where acoustic fish telemetry receivers will be an essential part of the vehicles’ payload. Several interesting student assignments on different topics may be defined within the frame of this project:

· Design of embedded hardware and software for:

o vehicle controls and communications

o sensors and payload integration

· Optimal search, mission and path planning

· Underwater target localisation and stealthy tracking

· Multi-agent- and formation control, machine learning

Figure: The fish tracking Otter USV.

Figure: Department's wave-driven USV, AutoNaut.

Integration of a machine vision plankton sensor in an unmanned surface vehicle for real-time autonomous ocean monitoring

The abundance, composition and dynamics of the phytoplankton community greatly impact ocean productivity and health. Plankton blooms may under certain circumstances develop excessively into a critical state that causes oxygen depletion and/or toxic conditions for organisms living in the ocean environment (HAB – harmful algal bloom). HABs can be particularly detrimental to fish farming and other aquacultural production.

This project aims to design a cost-efficient and flexible platform that will enable persistent autonomous plankton sampling and analyses. The focus will be on adapting the sensor payload, a machine vision-based plankton sensor (PlanktoScope), to an unmanned surface vehicle platform (USV Otter) and exploring the solution through practical experiments on Trondheimsfjorden.

LPWAN gateway buoy (LoRa, NB-IoT) for underwater acoustic sensor

This project concerns the development of a buoy solution for relaying data received by an underwater acoustic receiver to an internet backend. The buoy will typically be deployed in remote fjord and coastal locations for several months. It should be capable of transmitting data wirelessly to a gateway on shore while consuming minimal power. The wireless link will be based on LoRaWAN and/or NB-IoT to meet the low-power long-range requirements of the system. The project will focus on software design and development on the dedicated embedded buoy controller, LPWAN networks, internet technology, and realisation of the bridge from the LPWAN application layer to the DUNE software framework for heterogenous autonomous vehicles.

Figure: Remote hydrophone buoy concept.

Figure: Deployment of buoy prototype in a remote fjord.

Smart autonomous Lagrangian drifters for flow measurement in large-scale sea cages

A prototype buoyancy vehicle (BV) for underwater actuation has been developed. The BV can generate its own vertical motion by controlling the buoyancy force through a piston-based displacement manipulation mechanism and, hence, its own volumetric mass density. Furthermore, stabilisation of the BV at a specific reference depth is made possible through a pressure sensor and feedback control of buoyancy. The ability to stay neutral at a reference depth enables using the BV as a subsurface Lagrangian drifter for ocean current measurements, which is a target application for the BV. The underwater positioning system described in the project below will enable efficient subsurface tracking of the drifter.

The project aims to bring the prototype BV into a fully operational state that enables testing of its performance as a subsurface Lagrangian drifter. Design and realisation of an embedded computer (HW and SW) for controlling the vehicle will be central to this task, as will experimental validation in a full-scale sea cage. The BV should also provide a practical user interface for configuring the unit and retrieving onboard logging data.

Figure: Vehicle that can control its own buoyancy using a piston mechanism.

Figure: Typical step response of the buoyancy vehicle.

Underwater ultra-low power acoustic positioning system

Acoustic fish telemetry constitutes a powerful scientific tool for investigating the behaviour of fish and other aquatic animals remotely in the underwater environment. The concept is enabled by developments in microelectronics, MEMS sensors, and ultra-low power embedded microcontrollers and is sometimes referred to as “fish & chips”. This project is concerned with developing a system for estimating the position and tracking the movement of fish and other small subsea objects (e.g., an AUV) carrying miniature acoustic transmitters. The approach will be based on time difference of arrival (TDoA) measurements of signals in a spatially dispersed array of acoustic receivers (hydrophones) spanning the area of interest, e.g. an industry-scale fish cage. Receiver synchronisation is achieved through GNSS-based disciplining of receiver clocks through a dedicated battery-driven hardware module. The module also determines the receiver's position and provides an ultra-low power radio interface for communicating TDoA measurements in real-time to a central frontend computer for data processing and presentation. The main tasks of the project will be to develop embedded software for the hardware module that exploits its extremely low-power capability (including GNSS and wireless communication interface) and a flexible frontend solution that allows real-time estimation and visualisation of transmitter position, as well as relaying position data to other relevant systems (e.g. an underwater vehicle).

Figure: Localization of a fish in a fish cage (3D and horizontal heatmap).

Figure: Underwater localisation of "turtle-robot" UCAT on a mission in a fish cage.

IoF - Internet of Fish, an online fish monitoring system for sea farms

This project is related to the project described above but is focused on developing innovative backend and frontend solutions inspired by the IoT paradigm. The embedded module controlling the acoustic receiver features LoRa wireless radio communication, a key IoT technology enabling highly efficient data relaying from underwater sensors. The project is mainly a software design project, identifying use cases and user requirements, high-level software design, and implementing a suitable IoT backend and frontend application layer solution based on Internet technologies (e.g. MQTT, cloud computing, web services).

Ultra-low power electronic sensor tags for fish behavioural tracking

Electronic fish tags have benefitted vastly from the technological progress of microelectronics in terms of miniaturisation, energy efficiency, MEMS and signal processing capacity. With the increasing availability of data from large-scale earth observation systems (satellites), modern electronic fish tags are pushing the frontiers of knowledge in fish movement ecology. The proposed project involves designing and coding a miniature embedded computer that integrates a combined ATT (Acoustic Transmitter Tag) and DST (Data Storage Tag) functions. This combination will allow the electronic tag to work as a traditional DST (sensor data logger) when migrating in the open sea beyond receiver coverage, while the ATT function gets switched on only when the fish dwell in coastal waters, fjords and rivers where receiver coverage is more likely. The transmitter will also function as an acoustic beacon that significantly increases the likelihood of tag recovery, the primary weakness and impediment of traditional DST-based studies.

The tag platform should be designed to accommodate a variety of sensors, e.g. course of swimming (magnetometer), swimming activity (accelerometer), inclination of geomagnetic field (magnetometer), water temperature (thermometer), swimming depth (pressure sensor), and physiology (ECG, pulse oximetry and plethysmography), and being able to store logging data for extensive periods in non-volatile memory. The project will be based on a prototype tag platform and may be adapted to current needs in associated research projects.

Figure: Electronic fish tags - miniaturised embedded computers.

IoT and environmental sensing in water resource monitoring

Ultra-low power microcontrollers, sensors, and LPWAN wireless technologies create unprecedented opportunities for the scale, resolution, and persistence of real-time environmental monitoring. This project targets developing efficient and low-cost wireless sensor nodes (embedded computers) for distributed, real-time monitoring of river system discharge and flooding events.

Remotely activated intelligent LED tag for fish

Highly valuable broodfish are kept together in large seawater tanks in fish hatcheries but must be identified and handled individually during stripping and fertilisation. This project concerns the design and develop a miniature addressable LED tag that can be attached to the back of broodfish and activated remotely (wirelessly from outside the tank), thereby identifying a specified individual visually with minimal distraction and disturbance to the tank environment (the selected fish emits a distinct blink pattern). The LED tag must be tiny and have an operational life of several months, which requires an ultra-low power design approach for the tag’s electronics and signal processing solution.

Instrumentation and monitoring solutions for kelp farms

Large-scale seaweed cultivation and production is a relatively new and growing European industry with massive potential in Norwegian coastal waters. Seaweed production is an example of regenerative aquaculture and is an essential ingredient in many products and processes (nutrition, medicine, energy). It also has great potential for future carbon capture and climate mitigation. Collaborate with SINTEF Ocean and industry to develop instrumentation and monitoring solutions that will be needed to support the design of future kelp farms. Developing sensor buoys for measuring the shape and structural integrity of farms and cultivation lines using, e.g., high-precision RTK-GPS is one of several possible student projects in this area. More information on this project will be provided upon request.

Optimisation and user interface design for Atlantic salmon biosensing implant

Maintaining fish welfare and health are crucial elements in sustainable aquaculture production. However, the welfare and health of farmed fish in Norway is of concern, with 62.7 million salmon dying in aquaculture sea cages in 2023, which has remained relatively stable in recent years. While there have been advancements in managing challenges like lice and diseases, the aquaculture industry lacks solutions to consistently and objectively document fish welfare. To this end, biosensing implants can be used to monitor the physiological and behavioural responses of individual fish. Such responses are associated with stress, which, in turn, can indicate conditions detrimental to the animal's welfare.

A novel biosensing implant has been proven to expand the selection of parameters that implants with pulse oximetry can measure. However, the technology readiness level must be increased to optimise battery life, improve memory utilisation, and simplify mission planning and data download. The project may include various tasks such as:

1. Embedded system programming for energy optimisation.

2. Develop and test algorithms for auto adjustment of sensors.

3. Develop and test algorithms for data processing.

4. Embedded system programming for data compression.

5. Design and implementation of GUI for mission planning and data download.

6. Design and testing of an acoustic data transmission system.

Contact at SINTEF: Eirik Svendsen, Department of Aquaculture Technology, SINTEF Ocean