Radio frequency system for remote fish monitoring in aquaculture

Dissertação de mestrado, Engenharia Electrónica e Telecomunicações, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade do Algarve, 2017Stress is a factor that influences fish welfare. Some physiological and behavioral stress responses, such as the increase of cortisol release and heart rate, are triggered in fish and can show the severity of stress in fish. The objective of our work is to develop a system to monitor a device placed in free-swimming fish. The device has one or multiple sensors that measures parameters related with the stress or health state of the fish. The data recorded by the sensor is transmitted to a base station. Data transmission uses radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology. The tag is battery-less and receives the energy from the magnetic field provided by the base station. The system is low-cost, reliable and provides long-term monitoring. The project has been defined to use a commercial system operating at 134.2 kHz from Texas InstrumentsTM. The work carried out involved the optimization of the maximum distance between the tag and reader antenna to maintain a reliable communication. The maximum distance is defined as read range. The optimization of the read range is a crucial point on this thesis because radio waves are strongly attenuated underwater. The read range is influenced by the reader power, antennas size, antennas orientation as well as the presence of the metal in the antennas proximity. These aspects were studied in detail in this thesis. Measurements of the read range of the system were performed for a system with one reader antenna (single-antenna system) and a system with two reader antennas (multi-antenna system). For a multi-antenna system, we successfully covered the volume of a water tank with 70 cm length, 30 cm height and 40 cm width.A produção de peixes em aquacultura tem vindo a crescer exponencialmente. Atualmente, aproximadamente 50% do peixe consumido é produzido mundialmente em aquacultura. Com o objetivo de maximizar o rendimento de produção de peixe, são usadas densidades populacionais relativamente elevadas em espaços confinados. As condições de produção de peixe obrigam a ter um conjunto de preocupações com a saúde e bem-estar dos peixes por razões económicas e éticas. Em ambientes de aquacultura, é importante medir parâmetros que possam indiciar o desenvolvimento de alterações no estado de saúde dos peixes, sendo crucial para tomar medidas preventivas e impedir a propagação de doenças. Um dos indicadores mais relevantes que afeta a saúde do peixe é o stress. Quando submetidos a um stress prolongado, os peixes acabam por ficar suscetíveis a doenças, que se podem propagar rapidamente por toda a população com consequências catastróficas. É possível avaliar se um peixe está em estado de stress através de um conjunto de alterações fisiológicas e comportamentais, como por exemplo o aumento da hormona cortisol no sangue ou o aumento do batimento cardíaco. O objetivo do nosso projeto é desenvolver um sistema de monitorização capaz de detetar, em tempo real, as alterações fisiológicas ou comportamentais indicadoras de stress. O sistema implementado é constituído por um sensor ou vários sensores colocados no peixe a nadar livremente no tanque. Os dados recolhidos são então enviados por um sistema de transmissão de dados sem fios, através de ondas rádio, para uma estação base onde ocorre a monitorização dos dados. O consórcio onde foi realizado o nosso projeto (AquaExcell 2020) definiu que o sistema teria de ser um sistema comercial de identificação por rádio frequência (RFID) a funcionar a 134.2 kHz. Os sistemas RFID são usados vulgarmente na identificação e leitura de etiquetas de identificação eletrónica em animais ou objetos. O sistema RFID utilizado é um sistema passivo, em que a etiqueta eletrónica colocada no peixe não tem uma bateria. A energia que a etiqueta precisa é obtida através do sinal que é enviado pela antena do leitor. É um sistema de baixo custo, confiável e com um tempo de vida relativamente longo (duração de meses). Foi construído um sistema RFID a funcionar à frequência de 134.2 kHz usando equipamento comercial da Texas InstrumentsTM. O trabalho envolveu a otimização da distância máxima entre a etiqueta e a antena do leitor que permite obter leituras de forma confiável. Define-se a distância máxima como alcance de leitura. O alcance de leitura do sistema é um aspeto crucial porque as ondas eletromagnéticas são fortemente atenuadas pela água, que depende da frequência do sistema e da condutividade do meio. Tipicamente, um sistema a funcionar a 134.2 kHz tem um alcance inferior a um metro. O alcance de leitura do sistema depende do tipo de antenas usadas quer para a etiqueta quer para o leitor, da disposição espacial das antenas, do número de antenas e da forma como estas antenas são ligadas (em paralelo, em série, etc.). A presença de interferências externas (metais na proximidade das antenas) também condicionam o alcance. Foram realizadas experiências quer usando uma antena, quer usando duas antenas de leitura. Usando duas antenas, foi possível fazer uma monitorização em todo o volume de um tanque de água salgada de 70 cm de comprimento, 30 cm de altura e 40 cm de largura

Opercular beat rate sensor for remote fish monitoring

O consumo de bens alimentares, nomeadamente de peixes e de outros organismos aquáticos, tem crescido ao longo dos anos devido à crescente densidade populacional, que por consequência, a produção em cativeiro e/ou em ambiente controlado tem sofrido um aumento exponencial especialmente nos últimos anos, não só devido à elevada procura derivada do crescimento populacional como também para proteção das espécies selvagens. Em ambientes de aquacultura, como todos os tipos de produção que afunilam para a otimização da produção, leia-se, produzir mais, mais rápido e em menos espaço, têm como objetivo aumentar a eficiência e consequentemente diminuir o custo de produção. Contudo, os peixes são muito sensíveis ao stress, que por sua vez está fortemente relacionado com a saúde dos mesmos. Conseguir obter informações sobre o estado de stress dos peixes é uma boa prática que permite prever ou até impedir a propagação de doenças na população. Este tipo de informações pode ser expressa pelo peixe por um conjunto de alterações fisiológicas, tais como batimento cardíaco que está relacionado com o ritmo de respiração, libertação de hormonas que podem ser medidas com uma amostra da água onde a cultura se encontra, mudanças de cor do próprio peixe, ou até mesmo mudanças comportamentais tais como alimentação e atitude (ativa ou passiva). Estas mudanças na biologia do peixe resumem-se num crescimento demorado e/ou com doenças. O objetivo deste projeto é desenvolver um dispositivo eletrónico com um sensor capacitivo para ser colocado no opérculo de um peixe de tamanho médio das conhecidas espécies Robalo e/ou Dourada, de modo a conseguir obter o ritmo de batimento do opérculo, que está diretamente relacionado com o ritmo de respiração. O dispositivo é constituído pelo sensor dois elétrodos) e por toda a eletrónica, software e firmware necessários ao funcionamento, medição e transmissão do sinal adquirido pelo sensor. O sensor deverá enviar os dados para o sistema de receção “eZ430-TMS37157” da Texas InstrumentsTM. Este sistema (eZ430-TMS37157) é composto por um recetor, uma antena e uma tag (transponder) que comunica com o sistema recetor por Rádio-Frequência (RF). O sistema recetor utilizado neste projeto já foi anteriormente estudado e modificado (de modo a permitir a utilização de antenas maiores e também mais potência de emissão) por Tiago João Barbosa de Almeida, no desenvolvimento da Tese de mestrado “Radio frequency system for remote fish monitoring in aquaculture”. O consórcio responsável pelo projeto (AquaExcell 2020) definiu que o sistema teria de comunicar com o sistema recetor por rádio frequência (RFID) à frequência de 134.2 kHz, frequência normalmente usada em sistemas de identificação eletrónica interna e/ou externa para animais. Neste projeto, foram desenvolvidos o sensor, o circuito de transmissão, firmware e software necessários para o comunicação e processamento do sinal obtido pelo sensor. Todo este conjunto compõe uma tag, que tem como objetivo substituir a tag que compõe do kit original (eZ430-TMS37157), pela tag desenvolvida em laboratório. As experiências foram implementadas em laboratório, em aquário, com um peixe impresso em uma folha de acrílico e um motor para simular o movimento do opérculo através de ímanes, estando o sensor submerso em água salgada e colocado sobre o opérculo do peixe. O aquário utilizado tem 39 cm de comprimento, 30 cm de altura e 29 cm de largura e foi utilizado com água salgada natural proveniente da praia de Faro. Os resultados das experiências são o Opercular beat-rate (OBR) em batimentos por minuto (bpm) e o sinal ADC (utilizado para calcular a OBR).Fish health and welfare are highly correlated with the stress factor. When exposed to stress, the fish exhibits changes in behavior, growth rate, among other factors. These symptoms can be accessed using different techniques, visually (with cameras or naked eyes), or measured in laboratory (hormones quantity through water sampling), among others. This project aims to develop a capacitive sensor and an electronic device with a capacitive sensor to be placed on the fish operculum, with the ability to measure the breath-rate through the opercular movements and communicate the sensed data over RF-field at the frequency of 134 kHz, a common frequency used on animal identification. The development and analysis of the capacitive sensor and the associated electronics and software and/or firmware are the main objective of this work. The reception system used to receive the data is the “eZ430-TMS37157” from Texas InstrumentsTM. The receptor system was already modified to allow the connection of bigger antennas. The experiments were carried out with a printed fish on acrylic sheet, using a standard model from seabass or golden-bream specimens, with the aid of a motor using magnets to induce the opercular movement. The aquarium used has the dimensions of 39 cm length, 30 cm height and 29 cm width, being filled with saltwater from the local region. The experiments outputs are the opercular beat-rate (OBR) in beats per minute (bpm) and the ADC signal (used for OBR calculations).O presente trabalho foi financiado pelas seguintes projetos e instituições: - Projecto AQUAEXCEL 2020 (Grant agreement ID: 652831) - Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT), UID/EEA/50008/202

Environmental drivers of spatiotemporal variation in the movement, performance, and genetic structure of brown trout and Atlantic salmon

Environmental conditions vary spatially and temporally, providing organisms with both challenges and opportunities. Animals have evolved a spectacular variety of migratory behaviours to take advantage of environmental variation, particularly in cases where this variation is predictable. The spatiotemporal pattern of migratory movements displayed by a population or species can be thought of as the evolutionary outcome of trade-offs amongst life history traits. As such, the study of animal movement in relation to environmental heterogeneity can yield valuable insights into the proximate and ultimate drivers of migratory behaviours as well as the behavioural mechanisms underpinning genetic structure. Against this background, the overarching aim of this thesis is to investigate the role of environmental heterogeneity in shaping locally-adapted migratory behaviours, finescale genetic structure and physiological performance in populations of wild brown trout (Salmo trutta) and Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). Using telemetry data from passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags, I investigated the fine scale spatiotemporal patterns of spawning-related movements of brown trout between a feeding lake and two spawning streams (one inflowing, one outflowing, separated by < 100 m) over two spawning seasons. The timing of seasonal, daily and diel movements was strongly associated with variation in photoperiod, stream height and moon phase. Movement activity was highest at night, and particularly on nights with minimal lunar illumination and high water levels, suggesting that trout synchronise their spawning movements with environmental conditions that minimise their visibility to predators. Males began their movements between the lake and vii streams significantly earlier in the spawning season than females (protandry) and were generally more active. A substantial proportion of trout entered both spawning streams during the spawning periods, providing potential sources of gene flow between the two streams. However, Bayesian analyses revealed the existence of subtle genetic differentiation between juvenile trout sampled in the two streams and indicated that gene flow was strongly asymmetrical in a predominantly downstream (i.e. inflow to outflow) direction. Thus, natal dispersal between the two streams appears to be more common amongst trout that hatch in the inflow than the outflow. These findings have important implications for genetic diversity and local adaptation of fish stocks in fluvial and lacustrine environments. The collection of PIT-derived data in fluvial habitats is often hindered by the fragility of PIT antennae when exposed to high flows and flotsam. In Chapter 3 I present a novel PIT antenna design I developed for use in flood-prone spatey rivers. This design allows flotsam to pass without causing significant damage to antennae and was crucial for collecting the data used in Chapters 4 and 5 and in Appendix A. The performance of migratory populations can be strongly influenced by factors that affect the physiology or survival of migrants in any encountered habitat. I therefore investigated whether the acanthocephalan endoparasite Pomphorhynchus laevis causes a habitat-specific (i.e. freshwater or saltwater) pathology in Atlantic salmon smolts. Peculiarly for the species, the Irish strain of P. laevis uses salmonids, instead of cyprinids, as its preferred definitive hosts. Despite observing high prevalence of the parasite amongst wild smolts and high infection intensities in some individuals, I found no evidence of a pathological effect of infection in fresh or salt water. viii However, I did demonstrate that this freshwater parasite can survive in smolts in salinities similar to those found in coastal waters for at least 72 hours. Thus, the coastal roaming behaviour of Irish sea trout may have facilitated the colonisation of Irish river systems, resulting in the exceptionally widespread distribution of the parasite in Ireland. Collectively, these results contribute to our knowledge of how environmental heterogeneity influences the movement, performance, distribution and genetic structure of organisms in aquatic environments. As modern environmental changes occur at an unprecedented pace, such knowledge may provide us with the ability to anticipate, and perhaps even ameliorate, the impacts that anthropogenic activities have on migratory species

Ag-IoT for crop and environment monitoring: Past, present, and future

CONTEXT: Automated monitoring of the soil-plant-atmospheric continuum at a high spatiotemporal resolution is a key to transform the labor-intensive, experience-based decision making to an automatic, data-driven approach in agricultural production. Growers could make better management decisions by leveraging the real-time field data while researchers could utilize these data to answer key scientific questions. Traditionally, data collection in agricultural fields, which largely relies on human labor, can only generate limited numbers of data points with low resolution and accuracy. During the last two decades, crop monitoring has drastically evolved with the advancement of modern sensing technologies. Most importantly, the introduction of IoT (Internet of Things) into crop, soil, and microclimate sensing has transformed crop monitoring into a quantitative and data-driven work from a qualitative and experience-based task. OBJECTIVE: Ag-IoT systems enable a data pipeline for modern agriculture that includes data collection, transmission, storage, visualization, analysis, and decision-making. This review serves as a technical guide for Ag-IoT system design and development for crop, soil, and microclimate monitoring. METHODS: It highlighted Ag-IoT platforms presented in 115 academic publications between 2011 and 2021 worldwide. These publications were analyzed based on the types of sensors and actuators used, main control boards, types of farming, crops observed, communication technologies and protocols, power supplies, and energy storage used in Ag-IoT platforms

Specification, design and evaluation of an automated agrochemical traceability system

Traceability through all the stakeholders in food production is an issue of increasing importance, being specifically required by the regulations for food safety and quality (EC 178/2002), and for compliance with environmental protection. The agricultural market perceives a need for systems and technologies to automate the currently manual process of producing records of agrochemical inputs loaded into a spraying machine. A novel prototype Automated Agrochemical Traceability System (AACTS) to identify and weigh agrochemicals as they are loaded into crop sprayer has been designed, constructed, fitted to a machine and evaluated with commercial operators. The functional blocks of the system are a 13.56 MHz RFID reader, 1.4 litre self cleaning weighing funnel mounted on a 3 kg load cell, a user interface with a screen and three user command buttons (Yes, No, Back), and a progress bar made of 8 coloured LED’s (green, amber, red). The system is able to trace individual agrochemical containers, associate the product identity with national agrochemical databases, quantify the required amount of product, assist the sprayer operator and control workflow, generate records of sprayer inputs and interoperate with (recommending extensions to) task management standards as set out in ISO 11783-10. The evaluation of the quantity weighing has demonstrated that with such a system, the principal noise component is in the range of 33–83 Hz, induced by the operating tractor engine. A combined 3 Hz low pass digital filter with a second stage rolling mean of 5 values improves performance to allow a practical resolution of 1 gram (engine switched off) to 3.6 grams (sprayer fully operational) with a response appropriate to suit human reaction time. This is a significant improvement over the ±10 grams of the work of Watts (2004). An experiment with 10 sprayer operators has proved that in the majority of cases (92%) an accuracy equal or better than ±5% is achieved regardless of dispensing speed. The dispensed amounts (100.36% of target) and recorded (100.16%) are in accordance with prescribed values (100%; LSD(5%) 2.166%), where amounts dispensed by manual methods (92.61%) differ significantly from prescribed and recorded value (100%). The AACTS delivers a statistically similar work rate (211.8 s/task) as manual method (201.3 s/task; Δt = 10.5 s/task; LSD(5%) 28.2 s/task) in combined loading and recording cycle. Considering only the loading time (181.2 s/task) of manual method, the difference is 30.6 s/task (LSD(5%) 30.1 s/task). In practice this difference is believed to be marginal compared to the time required to load the water, random external events during the spraying session and in time moving, checking and storing paper records. The integrated weighing funnel concept is another significant improvement over previous work. Using this system, the mean duration of measuring per container for all tasks (34.0 s) is approximately half the time (68.5 s) achieved by Watts (2004). The AACTS was rated to be safer than the manual method regarding operator health and safety and risk of spillage. All operators who evaluated the AACTS were interested in purchasing such a system. The work confirmed that an RFID system was an appropriate media for agrochemical identification performing more than 250 product identification operations during operator tests without failure, with a speed of operation <1 s per cycle and reading distance of 100 mm. A specific format for RFID tag data is proposed for adoption, using low cost tags, that combines item level traceability with identification of products independently without access to worldwide databases. The AACTS follows ISO 11783 task management logic where a job is defined in a prepared electronic task file. It is proposed to extend the ISO 11783-10 task file to integrate the records provided by AACTS by handling the tank loads as individual products resulting from loading task and allocating them to spraying tasks. It is recommended to produce a production prototype following the design methodology, analysis techniques and performance drivers presented in this work and develop the features of user interface and records of tank content into software for ISO 11783-10 cabin task controller to deliver business benefits to the farming industry. The results with RFID encourage the adoption of RFID labelling of agrochemical containers. The reader may wish to read this thesis in parallel with Gasparin (2009) who has considered the business and industry adoption aspects of the AACTS.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Modern Telemetry

Telemetry is based on knowledge of various disciplines like Electronics, Measurement, Control and Communication along with their combination. This fact leads to a need of studying and understanding of these principles before the usage of Telemetry on selected problem solving. Spending time is however many times returned in form of obtained data or knowledge which telemetry system can provide. Usage of telemetry can be found in many areas from military through biomedical to real medical applications. Modern way to create a wireless sensors remotely connected to central system with artificial intelligence provide many new, sometimes unusual ways to get a knowledge about remote objects behaviour. This book is intended to present some new up to date accesses to telemetry problems solving by use of new sensors conceptions, new wireless transfer or communication techniques, data collection or processing techniques as well as several real use case scenarios describing model examples. Most of book chapters deals with many real cases of telemetry issues which can be used as a cookbooks for your own telemetry related problems

The behavioural ecology of migratory salmonids in the River Tweed, UK

This study investigated various life history stages of salmonids within the River Tweed, UK with a focus on migratory movements. The River Tweed is a large upland river situated on the border between Scotland and England and is home to some of the healthiest stocks of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) and sea trout (Salmo trutta) in the UK. The research undertaken as part of this thesis aims to assess how management can be improved to aid the migration of salmonids moving within freshwater. This is of particular importance due to increased demand for renewable energy including small scale hydropower as well as legislation that demands improved fish passage within rivers such as the Water Framework Directive. Sea trout smolts were captured and acoustic tagged to assess the roles that in river obstructions such as weirs play on their migration between years with varying river flow. The two study years varied radically in flow levels due to the incidences of hydrological drought in 2010 significant differences were observed in the degree of delay smolts experienced at weirs as well as differing responses to flow during years. Sea trout and salmon were acoustic tagged and tracked during their freshwater spawning migration. The aim of the study was to examine the interspecific differences in spawning migration such as spawning location and movement rate during migration. By looking at migration rate of sea trout and salmon it was observed that both species decreased their migratory rate the further into the river system they moved. It was also observed that sea trout and salmon spawned in different locations, with sea trout using tributaries and salmon using lower stretches of the Tweed. The small scale movements of freshwater resident trout was studied. Freshwater resident trout tend to have relatively small home ranges and often hold a territory within their home range. As a result they also tend to rapidly home back to their territory after being displaced from it. As such, the study aimed to assess the degree to which brown trout home after being displaced, particularly whether being offered a choice of empty territories at their site of displacement would affect their homing behaviour. The study found that there was no apparent difference in homing behaviour observed between treatment groups offered empty territories at their site of displacement compared to controls that were displaced into fully populated sites. Continued research into the behaviour of salmonid species is important due to increasing demand on water resources, future conflict between man and fishes water needs is inevitable

Management plan to save the eel. Optimising the design and management of installations

The European eel was until recently an abundant species in most European freshwaters, but its numbers have fallen sharply since the 1970s and 1980s. The causes of the rapid decline, which now threatens the very existence of the species, are clear for the most part and include fishing, poor quality of water and habitats, fragmentation of rivers by weirs and dams, and death in hydroelectric turbines. To meet the restocking goals set by the European Union (EU), France has initiated a management plan addressing each of the factors responsible for the decline of the species. Concerning river obstacles and turbines, the Ecology ministry launched an R&D programme bringing together a number of partners, including Ademe, Onema and five hydroelectric companies, namely Compagnie nationale du Rhône, EDF, France Hydro Electricité, GDF Suez and Société hydroélectrique du Midi. The programme, managed by a steering committee comprising the partners mentioned above and placed under the responsibility of the Ecology ministry, targeted a number of operational goals that resulted in the development and testing of technical solutions designed for rapid implementation in the field. All programme results were presented on 28 and 29 November 2011 at the feedback symposium which brought together 160 persons, including researchers, water managers, associations and hydroelectric companies

Special oils for halal and safe cosmetics

Three types of non conventional oils were extracted, analyzed and tested for toxicity. Date palm kernel oil (DPKO), mango kernel oil (MKO) and Ramputan seed oil (RSO). Oil content for tow cultivars of dates Deglect Noor and Moshkan was 9.67% and 7.30%, respectively. The three varieties of mango were found to contain about 10% oil in average. The red yellow types of Ramputan were found to have 11 and 14% oil, respectively. The phenolic compounds in DPKO, MKO and RSO were 0.98, 0.88 and 0.78 mg/ml Gallic acid equivalent, respectively. Oils were analyzed for their fatty acid composition and they are rich in oleic acid C18:1 and showed the presence of (dodecanoic acid) lauric acid C12:0, which reported to appear some antimicrobial activities. All extracted oils, DPKO, MKO and RSO showed no toxic effect using prime shrimp bioassay. Since these oils are stable, melt at skin temperature, have good lubricity and are great source of essential fatty acids; they could be used as highly moisturizing, cleansing and nourishing oils because of high oleic acid content. They are ideal for use in such halal cosmetics such as Science, Engineering and Technology 75 skin care and massage, hair-care, soap and shampoo products