Underwater Drone-A Novelty to Aquaculture

As world’s population is on the rise, there is increase pressure on marine capture fisheries, for which aquaculture has emerged as a crucial solution to meet the demand of sea food. Underwater drones also known as Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) in integration with Internet of Things (IoT) offers to overcome these challenges leading to sustainable aquaculture. Drones play a pivotal role in managing aquaculture farms, keep an eye on fish behavior in natural habitats, any damage to fisheries infrastructures, to provide real time data that heighten sustainable fisheries management and also to detect arbitrary swimming patterns. There is an increasing need to carryout underwater inspections for businesses operating out of domestic ports, for management of infrastructures such as dams and for fisheries. In addition, while aquaculture is attracting attention, number of fishermen are decreasing due to many factors such as aging, and inspection works for underwater structures are affected. Through trials it was observed that combined aerial and underwater drone system could perform underwater observations successfully.