AI brings automation to seafood industry

JCU’s Phoebe Arbon was presented with a Science and Innovation Award for Young People in Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry last night in Canberra.

“I’ll use the grant to develop, train and validate an AI model to identify, count and measure abalone from an image. So, very basically, the AI model will learn to predict the weight and size of abalone from images,” she said.

Ms Arbon said the technology is already in existence but needs specific instructions and application to work within the abalone industry.

“Currently, assessing abalone is done manually which can cause harm to the abalone, and costs each farm about $25,000 a year,” she said.

Ms Arbon said she expects the AI will be able to rapidly assess large numbers of abalone on farms and accurately predict their size.

She said AI is an innovative and increasingly prominent technology with proven applications.

“When Google recognises a face in a photo for you – that’s an AI routine running. It’s a fast-developing technology and still to be widely applied in many industries, aquaculture among them.”

Ms Arbon said the project will introduce the technology to the abalone industry and produce large datasets which will have vast applications for production as well as future research and development of the industry.