electronics

Review
Overview of Smart Aquaculture System: Focusing on
Applications of Machine Learning and Computer Vision
Thi Thu Em Vo 1,2,† , Hyeyoung Ko 3,† , Jun-Ho Huh 4, * and Yonghoon Kim 5, *

1 Department of Computer Education, Teachers College, Sara Campus, Jeju National University, 61 Iljudong-ro,
Jeju-si 63294, Korea; [email protected]
2 Department of Agriculture, Phu Yen University, Phu Yen 62000, Vietnam
3 Department of Digital Media Design and Applications, Seoul Women’s University, Seoul 01797, Korea;
[email protected]
4 Department of Data Science, (National) Korea Maritime and Ocean University, 727 Taejong-ro,
Busan 49112, Korea
5 Department of Computer Software Engineering, Silla University, Busan 46958, Korea
* Correspondence: [email protected] or [email protected] (J.-H.H.); [email protected] (Y.K.)
† Co-first author, these authors contributed equally to this work.

Abstract: Smart aquaculture is nowadays one of the sustainable development trends for the aquacul-
ture industry in intelligence and automation. Modern intelligent technologies have brought huge
benefits to many fields including aquaculture to reduce labor, enhance aquaculture production, and
be friendly to the environment. Machine learning is a subdivision of artificial intelligence (AI) by
using trained algorithm models to recognize and learn traits from the data it watches. To date,
there are several studies about applications of machine learning for smart aquaculture including





 measuring size, weight, grading, disease detection, and species classification. This review provides
Citation: Vo, T.T.E.; Ko, H.; Huh, and overview of the development of smart aquaculture and intelligent technology. We summarized
J.-H.; Kim, Y. Overview of Smart and collected 100 articles about machine learning in smart aquaculture from nearly 10 years about the
Aquaculture System: Focusing on methodology, results as well as the recent technology that should be used for development of smart
Applications of Machine Learning aquaculture. We hope that this review will give readers interested in this field useful information.
and Computer Vision. Electronics
2021, 10, 2882. https://doi.org/ Keywords: smart aquaculture; artificial intelligent; machine learning; AI; application
10.3390/electronics10222882

Academic Editors: Jungong Han and

Savvas A. Chatzichristofis 1. Introduction
Global aquaculture production has been increasing continuously, reaching more
Received: 25 August 2021
Accepted: 12 November 2021
than three times the total live weight [1] with the main species groups including catfish,
Published: 22 November 2021
seaweeds, carps, bivalves and tilapia accounting for 75% of aquaculture production. In
addition, marine species such as fish and crustaceans have also grown rapidly during this
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral
time [1]. The diversity of species in aquaculture is increasing, and an estimated 40% of
with regard to jurisdictional claims in
the different species belong to fish, shellfish, algae more fish, shellfish, and algae which
published maps and institutional affil- are cultivated in a various of water environment such as marine water, brackish water
iations. and fresh water globally [2]. Traditional aquaculture brings poses many issues for the
environment, and has limited production as well as many labor requirements. Therefore,
smart aquaculture is a concept aiming to develop aquaculture industry in a sustainable
way, enhance production and friendly to the environment.
Copyright: © 2021 by the authors.
According to traditional aquaculture, during operation technical steps from water
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
preparation, seed selection, feeding, and care during the rearing process are carried out.
This article is an open access article
Through aquaculture activities, there are many difficulties such as the process of water
distributed under the terms and quality management in the aquaculture system, and usually people will take water samples
conditions of the Creative Commons twice a day in the morning and afternoon. This process takes much time and it is also
Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// impossible to treat the water on time in some cases of sudden changes of water quality
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ in ponds/tanks. In another example, such as fish raised in ponds, people cannot detect
4.0/). diseased fish at an early stage, only when they die or come to the surface, and then treat

Electronics 2021, 10, 2882. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics10222882 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/electronics

Electronics 2021, 10, 2882 2 of 26

them. In another example regarding the amount of leftover food in the pond, people
cannot accurately estimate the amount of food left in the pond, the leftover food affects
the water quality. When counting fish before selling, for example seed, people have to
count each fish, which takes time and effort etc. All of the above difficulties affect profits in
aquaculture. Therefore, smart aquaculture aims to apply smart producuton modes which
solves problems in traditional aquaculture.
For a smart aquaculture approach, several smart devices are integrated into an envi-
ronment specially structured to monitor cultured environmental parameters in real time
and then make decisions through the collected data in automatically [3]. Smart aquaculture
is a smart production mode. It can be controlled in a distance and automation by applying
of IoT, big data, artificial intelligence, 5G, cloud computing, and robotics. On the other
hand, smart aquaculture can be controlled by robot which can manage facilities, equipment,
machineries to operate whole systems to achieve successful production [4].
There are several aspects related to smart aquaculture including collecting information
through variety of temperature, dissolved oxygen, humidity, light, pH sensors for manage-
ment of the water quality parameters in aquaculture system; transmitting the collected data
by communication nodes to the control center; analyzing data and decision-making stored
in cloud platforms; feedback of decision to each execution equipment, and the intelligence
to operate a system automatically in order to develop aquaculture in a sustainable and
efficient way, friendly to the environment [4].
For instance, deploying AI (artificial intelligence) and IoT (Internet of Things) in aqua-
culture has been increasing to solve the problems which exist in traditional aquaculture [5].
They are applied in various culture system such as cages, pond, hatchery, and breeding,
with several goals like water quality monitoring [6–9]; observation of condition inside
cages, pond as well as hatchery; optimizing the amount of feed to supply for cultured
species and suitable time for feeding; decreasing the frequency of feed supply to cultured
systems; reducing labor by the automation the culture systems [10,11].
Chrispin et al. [12] briefly reported the application of AI in aquaculture such as AI
feeding devices, AI drones in aquaculture, prevention of diseases, fish seed screening,
routine checkup of stock; AI in shrimp farming; AI smartphone application; AI in fish
processing; AI in open sea fisheries; block chain technology in shrimp supply chain; and AI
in conservation of endangered fishes. The general concept of smart aquaculture is presented
in Figure 1 [12]. The figure shows the deployment of smart devices in aquaculture and all
data as well as the management of the whole aquaculture process that are sent through
smart phones [5,12].

Figure 1. Concept diagram of smart aquaculture system.

Electronics 2021, 10, 2882 3 of 26

Machine learning has the main function in solving problems which exist based on the
algorithms and learning data to create mathematical models that ameliorate the perfor-
mance of system in computer [13]. There are several models which have been deployed in
aquaculture recently including decision tree (DT) [14], naive Bayes (NB) [15], support vector
machine (SVM) [16], artificial neural network (ANN) [17], K-nearest neighbor (KNN) [18],
deep learning (DL) [19], and ensemble learning (EL) [20].
Supervised learning, unsupervised learning, semi-supervised learning, and reinforce-
ment learning are four types of machine learning structure, in which supervised learning is
one of the most popular. Supervised learning is commonly used for classification and re-
gression, where using data as a sample after trained by machine learning model which have
the same target values [21]. From the theory of machine learning as well as its advantages,
there are several implements in aquaculture recently such as biomass fish detection [22],
size estimates [23–25], weight estimates [26–28], count [29–32], fish recognition [33–38],
age detection [39,40], sex identification [34,41–43], fish species classification [44–50], feed-
ing behavior [51,52], group behavior [53], abnormal behavior [54,55], univariate predic-
tion [38,56–59], multivariate prediction [60–62], with the high accuracy rate.
The goal of this review is to survey the status of machine learning applications for
smart aquaculture. The strategy of this review is the following: (1) overview of smart aqua-
culture; (2) machine learning and (3) applications of machine learning in smart aquaculture.
Figure 2 shows overview of smart aquaculture sensors and monitoring systems.

Figure 2. Overview of smart aquaculture sensors and monitoring systems.

Electronics 2021, 10, 2882 4 of 26

2. Literature Surveys
2.1. Smart Aquaculture
Based on the advanced of artificial intelligent, smart aquaculture can perfect all stages
from breeding, nursery to grow out stages of cultured species, as well as other processing
like preparation of cultured water resource, manage the water quality, feed preparation,
feeding, classification, grading, counting and washing the cultured systems. The final goal
for developing the smart aquaculture is to obtain high aquaculture production to match
world demand as well as protect environment.

2.1.1. Water Quality Monitoring in Smart Aquaculture

Water quality is the main factor which contributes to success and efficient management
in aquaculture. There are several water quality parameters which play a vital role in direct
or indirect on the survival and growth of cultured species that have been considered such
as temperature, turbidity, carbon dioxide, pH, alkalinity, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate, etc.
Among them, temperature, dissolved oxygen and pH are most robust [63]. During the last
few years, IoT has had various applications in different fields including aquaculture. Using
IoT in aquaculture has opened a new trend to develop this field in a sustainable way with
intelligent devices in real time using connected water monitoring capabilities that help to
improve aquaculture famer’s working conditions [63].
There are 4 main layers of an IoT Aquaculture System: Physical Layer, Monitoring
Layer, Virtual Layer, and Connection protocol, presented in Figure 2. The smart farm
industry/intelligent aquaculture has become the inevitable trend in order to decrease labor
costs, to increase operational efficiency, and to lead to higher productivity. The future
IoT-based systems could also aim to detect fish diseases and prevent production loss. It is
worth noting that although there are several achievements in the application of artificial
intelligent devices for aquaculture to build up intelligent, and high-precision fish farming
is progressing quickly, there are still many challenges to operate fully automated systems.
Because aquaculture activities and its products are different from others, labor manage-
ment is high in risk, as there is still a need for a certain amount of observation, information
analyzation, and decision making during the fish farming process. However, a lot of intelli-
gent equipment, such as the technologies mentioned above, are responsible for monitoring
fish farming environments: robotic devices for production; data and information sorting;
and energy-saving processing equipment will continue to greatly automate different stages
of fish farming operations [64]. These can be implemented in aquaculture for fish identifi-
cation, mass estimation, and behavior management. In addition, it is necessary to create
new sensors which integrate several functions in a sensor/multifunctional sensor with
high reliability, have the wide range applications, and long-life cycle [65]. Figure 3 shows
an IoT aquaculture system [64,65].
To date, there have been several studies about intelligent information such as AI
and IoT deployed in aquaculture in different areas such as ponds, hatcheries, cages. Cha-
van et al. [66] used Raspberry Pi, which is utilized for checking real-time monitoring
systems in aquaculture with temperature sensor, dissolved oxygen sensor, pH sensor,
ammonia sensor. The collected data are stored in a cloud computing system and then trans-
ferred to the aqua farmer mobile. In a smart fish farm, Kim et al. [67] setup a recirculating
aquaculture system (RAS) with water quality monitoring sensors, MQTT protocol and a
MICOM controller. Al-Hussaini et al. [68] also focuses on automatic data acquisition and
monitoring systems for RAS using fog computing technology and low-cost systems with
Raspberry Pi, to overcome the existing problems.
Electronics 2021, 10, 2882 5 of 26

Figure 3. Internet of Things (IoT) Aquaculture System.

The data collecting system for RAS (RaspDAQ) is developed by connecting Raspberry
Pi 3 to a temperature sensor (LM35DT), using ADC MCP3002, a water level sensor (HC-
SR04), and Rpi camera module. Shin et al. [69] proposed a smart fish farm that consists of
two tanks: a balancing tank and a recirculating aquaculture system (RAS). Experiments
were conducted in the laboratory of the Future Convergence Technology Research Institute
at the Busan University of Foreign Studies and at the eel culture farm of Jangsucheon Ltd.,
located on Gangwhado Island.
In this system, the effluence of water is controlled by a controller-the proportional
integral derivative (PID) controller which is connected with a sensor with water-level con-
trolling function, water temperature sensors, dissolved oxygen (DO) sensors, and potential
hydrogen (pH) sensors. Remote control and the real-time monitoring are performed by
using the Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol, with the measured big
data stored in lab servers. Monirul et al. [70] proposed a real-time, smart-based water
monitoring system using IoT devices. The system was built using several devices, such as
sensors (temperature, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, pH, Water Level, and CO3 gas), Arduino,
and an IoT platform.
For deploying IoT system in ponds, Nocheski et al. [71] presented an upgrade on a
functional Internet of Things (IoT) system to automatically monitor the water quality in
cultured systems. The IoT system includes some sensors that can measure several impor-
tant water quality meters in cultured systems (tank, pond, cage, . . . ), like temperature,
light intensity, and water level. It also consists of a small computer board whereby the
collected data from those sensors and analyzed data as a final result can be sent as a
sound/notification to the users. Krishna et al. [72] also set up an IoT system in fish pond to
manage fish health as well as the water quality monitoring with an Arduino Uno board,
Atmega328 micro controller, Wi-Fi module, Buzzer, LCD (liquid crystal display), and MIT
application, providing data that are retrieved from the cloud by the farmer, along with the
environmental parameters.
Prabhu [73] proposed an IoT system with the main goal is to manage the water
quality parameters in the cultured system (a lake or a pond) by using sensors such as a
temperature sensor, pH sensor as well as turbidity sensor. Users can obtain and analyze
data as a message (SMS) through their mobile phone with their own language and can give
several actions in managing the environmental conditions with an Arduino Nano Board
Electronics 2021, 10, 2882 6 of 26

and ESP8266 wi-fi module. Nguyen et al. [74] deployed a monitoring water quality system
using IoTs in particularly fish ponds as well as other aquaculture systems, especially to
create a model for forecasting quality indicators.
In this system, the author installed several sensors to manage some water quality
parameters such as temperature, salinity, pH, DO, and COD indicators in the fish pond.
The software is a cloud database provided by the digital ocean, which can be seen in mobile
devices or on a PC/laptop. Forecasting techniques use an average, stochastic, gradient
descent model. The results on two data sets show that this is a successful system which can
be applied in real. Hsu et al. [75] collected water quality parameter’s data through sensors
such as oxidation-reduction potential (ORP), pH and temperature. They also employed a
monitoring data map in real-time in order to find out the pond conditions. The IoT-based
system includes Raspberry PI, Arduino UNO, Bluetooth module, two or more sensor
modules (ORP, temperature, pH meter), GCM (Google Cloud Messaging), mobile App
device’s REGID, prediction analysis, and Web Page Management Mode (HTML combined
with PHP).
Darmalim et al. [76] proposed an IoT system to automatically monitor these envi-
ronmental parameters. The water quality parameters are collected in real time from the
cultured system and collected data are directly update on web and the user can get in-
formation from the IoT device. It is developed using a Python framework. To get data
which can presented the environmental conditions, by accessing the web application, the
users can directly know what happened in the pond and take the right action on time. The
electrical components are NodeMcuESP8266, ADC Ads1115, a logic converter, a dissolved
oxygen and temperature sensor, a pH sensor, a turbidity sensor, a TDS sensor, a DC-DC
converter, and a power supply and web application is used for a Python web development
framework, and this is connected to a MySQL database. Darus et al. [77] proposed water
quality monitoring from a catfish pond that has been analyzed using simple expectation
maximization (EM) clustering.
Parameters, such as total dissolved solids (TDS), water level, turbidity, pH, and
temperature, have been collected via sensors connected to a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. The
experiment consists of the following activities: installation of WEKA API in Raspberry
Pi3 Model B (Stretch), installation of total dissolved solids, water level, turbidity, pH, and
temperature sensors to the Raspberry Pi3 Model B, as well as using a simple expectation
maximization clustering technique, as in the equation. Figure 4 shows IoT monitoring
water quality system block diagram [76,77].

2.1.2. Feeding Controlling

One of the main problems in aquaculture is feeding. According to the traditional
method, farmers will spread food all over the pond, or at a certain location in the pond,
depending on the eating characteristics of cultured species. Therefore, it is necessary to
apply IoT in the feeding system to control the feeding amount as well as feed automatically
which brings many benefits such as saving manpower and controlling the amount of
leftovers, reducing water quality pollution in aquaculture. There are some studies which
have been conducted.
For instance, Malathi et al. [78] provides an efficient semi-automatic system that
facilitates the healthy growth of aquatic organisms in aquaculture. This study is conducted
not only for a feeding system but also for water quality parameters in a cultured system
through sensors such as a pH sensor and temperature sensor. The GSM module is used to
alert the cultivator whenever the quality parameters violate the normal range. The feeding
system automatically feeds the fish based upon its requirements. The system mainly
consists of an Arduino Uno, a DS18B20 Temperature Sensor, a pH sensor, and a SIM900A-
GSM module. Daud et al. [79] proposed water quality system based on IoT devices in a
smart aquarium. The goal of this study is to maintain the freshwater in aquarium tank at a
suitable level for fish habitats and feeding condition. This system is designed with MEGA
and NodeMCU controllers and is controlled by a smartphone in its operation. Arduino
Electronics 2021, 10, 2882 7 of 26

are used in the designed system. Wi-Fi communication on the NodeMCU is connected
between the smartphone and the controller to control the operation. All collected data of
water quality is displayed on LCD. Figure 5 shows the block diagram complete system of
the IoT application. In summary, user can control feeding machine automatically through
the IoT devices [78,79].

2.2. Machine Learning

It is said that “Machine learning is a subdivision of AI”. Instead of doing by an explicit
computer programming expert, algorithmic models are trained to take specific functions by
recognizing and learning samples from data which they have automatically, with accuracy
and speed. As mentioned above, this process can be categorized as supervised, semi-
supervised/unsupervised, and reinforcement learning with the most popular method is
supervised (Figure 6) [80].

Figure 4. IoT monitoring water quality system block diagram.

Electronics 2021, 10, 2882 8 of 26

Figure 5. Block diagram complete system of IoT application.

Figure 6. The relationship between the four types of machine learning and common applications.

Supervised learning needs to use an algorithm system to obtain experience through

training with a labeled dataset. From these experiences, we can recognize and distinguish
novel data that are not similar to the trained ones. After finishing trained stages, these
algorithms will do their duties by testing new data resources/images to classify either
the target images or not [81]. Unsupervised learning is the output data with no training
dataset. It is very similar to supervised learning. The goal of this type of learning is to
classify the input resources into different types.
Data not labeled, however, are the input data in unsupervised learning so the goal of
this model is to classify the input data due to its own features. That is the robust different
point between supervised learning and unsupervised learning [82]. A hybrid method
of machine learning which combines two aspects such as supervised and unsupervised
learning is known as semi-supervised machine learning. In this side, to reduce the labelled
input data by a method, for instance a huge of unlabeled inputs are combined with a small
amount of labeled inputs [82].
Electronics 2021, 10, 2882 9 of 26

Machine learning tasks and the main algorithms are shown in Figure 7 [81,82]. Four
main tasks in machine learning include classification, regression, clustering, and DR
(dimensionality reduction). Of these, supervised learning models have the classification
and regression. Clustering belongs to unsupervised while DR belongs to both supervised
and unsupervised learning.

Figure 7. Machine learning tasks and main algorithms.

There are many machine learning models which have been used including DT, SVM,
NB, ANN, DL, EL and KNN. Each machine learning model has its own advantages and
disadvantages. According to Zhao et al. [83], although DT and SVM are considered good
models to use, they seem very sensitive to missing values. Otherwise, NB, ANN, and
KNN are better than DT and SVM with many advantages such as being more efficient, less
sensitive for missing values and having a high accuracy rate.

2.3. Applications of Machine Learning and Computer Vision in Aquaculture

Figure 8 shows an overview of applications of machine learning in aquaculture sys-
tems. In general, machine vision/computer vision is the main tool to measure the size
of fish. Images are taken through a camera that are attached in a fish measurement sys-
tem and then all collected images are sent to software and are analyzed and then the
results compiled [81–84].
Electronics 2021, 10, 2882 10 of 26

Figure 8. Overview of application of machine learning in aquaculture systems.

2.3.1. Measure Fish Size

Measuring fish size/fish grading is one of the necessary actions during culturing fish
because of fish characteristics as well as the need to obtain the market size of fish. Size
grading is known that the most frequent grading which is often operated in the rearing
stage. Automation of aquatic species in aquaculture by machine learning can decrease
costs for operation and management, as well as enhance profit and quality production.
Measuring fish for the market is also very important. This work takes more time and is
complicated because it is needed to discharge the abnormal fish. There are several studies
which focused on different fish species in aquaculture.
White et al. [84] proposed a system using image processing algorithms to determine
and identify the size of different fish species. Images of fish were obtained from several
species such as Hippoglossoides platessoides, Solea vulgaris, Microstomus kitt, Pleuronectes
platessa, Sebastes marinus, Sebastes mentella and Platichthys flesus. Figure 9 shows the Catch-
Meter system includes conveyor, light box, and feeder. An Omron PLC (Kyoto, Japan) link
to the main computer and software via an ethernet link is a controlled mechanical system.
Then, collected images are sent to computer and are analyzed by a software program. The
processing is shown in a flow chart in Figure 10 [84].

Figure 9. Schematic diagram of the CatchMeter system.

Electronics 2021, 10, 2882 11 of 26

Figure 10. Flow chart showing basic step in the fish analysis software.

By using hardware and programing techniques, the authors design and develop fish
sorting equipment to determine the fish length as well as classify the fish species in real
time condition. That is the main goal of this study. The result shows image processing
algorithms for a flatfish/roundfish. Measuring the fish length can be undertaken with
100% accuracy rate, with a standard deviation of 1.2 mm and determine the fish species
with up to 99.8% accuracy rate. It is estimated that every 1 h, a single conveyor system can
measure up to 30,000 fish.
Related to this approach, Costa et al. [85] conducted an experiment with aim of this
study is to develop methodology tools to directly measure size, identify sex and recognize
the abnormal performance of seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax L.) in online conditions in an
aquaculture farm. The seabass samples are taken from five crossed population from
the wild in European. There are 259 fish photographed and weighed individually with
minimum weight 0.1 g. Elliptic Fourier analysis (EFA) on the outline coordinates is used to
analyze the fish shape. The original images are transformed by two channels such as G
(gray scale) and V (value) channel in the HSV color space.
The Euclidean distance of each pixel was calculated from the background. Matlab
operator was adopted to binarize the image in Figure 11 [85]. The result showed that this
is the efficient method to sort fish online and can be applied widely in many fish farms.

Figure 11. Flow chart to sort fish in MATLAB environment.

Mustafa et al. [86] proposed this study to measure the length of fish automatically
by image processing (FLUDI framework) instead of by measurement tools which are of
high cost. Rastrelliger kanagurta and Selar crumenophthalmus species were used for this
experiment. The figure shows the final interface of the FLUDI software to measure the
actual the length of fish from the digital image. They used two kinds of camera such as
Pentax camera (8.0 megapixel) and Sony (5.0 megapixel).
Electronics 2021, 10, 2882 12 of 26

The Pentax camera (8.0 megapixel) and Sony (5.0 megapixel) has shown 0.74% and
0.19% error, respectively in this study. The result of study showed that FLUDI software has
a very high potential to measure the actual length of fish from the digital image. However,
the software can be applied to other objects without any object reference. The actual fish
length from the digital image was tested by comparing the fish length obtained from the
traditional measuring board (Figure 12) [86]. The result shows that the difference is very
small, ranging from 0.74–2.19%.

Figure 12. Flow chart of FLUDI framework.

Jeong et al. [87] deployed a measure fish system based on a vision-based automatic
system (VAMS) to determine total length (TL), body width (BW), height (H), and weight
(W) without contact to the for non-contact measurement of morphometric characteristics of
flatfish. A laser displacement and a load cell were used to measure H and W, respectively.
In addition, an algorithm was proposed to catch and measure TL and BW based on the
morphological image processing algorithm. Figure 13 shows an example of the method to
measure the fish without contact through proposed VAMS for management of fisheries re-
sources a conceptual diagram of a database management system for fishery resources based
on the morphometric characteristics of flatfish [87]. The measured data can be collected
from different locations such as a research center/institute, a fish market, or a fisheries
resource investigation laboratory. After that, all those collected data are transmitted to
the server.
The proposed VAMS includes a vision system (PV-500, Panasonic, Kadoma, Japan),
a laser displacement sensor (Omron, ZX-LT030, Kyoto, Japan), a charge-coupled device
(CCD) camera (lens: focal length of 25 mm, CCD: size of 2/3 inches), a white 30W LED
backlight, a conveyor belt, and a road cell (Figure 11). The result shows that the VAMS sys-
tem can measure flatfish reach 266.844 mm average of TL and can measure 900 individual
fish per hour of capacity with a single conveyor. Furthermore, it can measure the fish with
TL reaching 500 mm.
Electronics 2021, 10, 2882 13 of 26

Figure 13. Conceptual diagram of a database management system for fishery resources management.

In addition, Gerami et al. [88] assess the weight of salmon fish using machine vision.
The fish samples were collected from a fish farm in Iran. There are 75 live specimens
of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). A digital Cannon IXUS 960IS (12 mega pixels;
3000 × 4000) in the red, green and blue channels was used to take photo from left side of
samples. The camera was located above the sample at a height of 45 cm. All taken fish
photos can be transmitted to computer and analyzed by MATLAB (Matrix laboratory)
version R2009x (Figure 14) [88].

Figure 14. Sort by: original form, R, G, and B color model, one color channel median filter, Cb image
component, Grayscale image, Noise reduction.
Electronics 2021, 10, 2882 14 of 26

This obtained a good result with clear images and assessed weight with high accuracy
for fish by algorithms. From this result, it is concluded that machine vision should be an
efficient tool for measuring weight as well as evaluate the visual features for fish. Therefore,
machine vision could be used to evaluate the visual features of fish and estimate fish
weight. It is suggested that this method is also used in fisheries processes in further work.
Meanwhile, Sanchez-Torres et al. [89] collected information from many works in the
literature related to machine vision and then conducted a new concept for this field based
on the existing information. It is a suitable system for measuring fish by using a single
camera to take the photo in a controlled setup because it can manage better sample size and
good condition images. Furthermore, a combination of homomorphic filtering, contrast
limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE) and guided filtering for fish image
enhancement was used. The whole procedure to measure fish is shown in Figure 15 [89].

Figure 15. Outline of the procedures employed to segment fish.

Results shows that it is a simple and efficient method to measure length and weight of
fish such as polynomial regression at grade 3 and grade 4. Based on this result, this method
is also applied to calculate the feed amount which is supplied for fish due to the length
and weight of fish.
Sung et al. [90] conducted a study with the aim is to grader flatfish in automatically
based on the size for effective and stable growth using machine vision. The designed grader
has three components including a conveyor belt, machine vision and sorter (Figure 16) [90].

Figure 16. Structure of weight grader.

Fishes are transferred to the conveyor belt to measure and grade. As fish and their
length are detected by image processing, the location of the grader is managed by the
length classification (Figure 17) [90].
Electronics 2021, 10, 2882 15 of 26

Figure 17. Schematic diagram of the fish grader for measurement and control.

The machine vision part is composed of a camera, LED lights, and a darkroom with
low cost. The figure shows the sort of process is an open-loop control system. Through
the conveyor belt the fish is transferred from the hopper to the measure part. Then due to
the classification, sorter’s position is controlled. Finising measurement, the conveyor belt
is worked again. Finally the fish is graded by the sorter. The result showed that this is an
accurate system for grading with high efficiency and low cost.
In general, machine vision is the main tool to measure the size of fish. Images are
taken through a camera which is attached to a fish measurement system and then sends all
collected images to a software which are analyzed and results are compiled.

2.3.2. Fish Disease and Health Management

Disease is one of the severe issues which strongly effect on quality as well as aquacul-
ture production. In aquaculture, disease results from the imbalance among many factors
which come from host, pathogen and environment. There are different types of disease
which is illustrated in two main categories: infectious (parasitic, fungal, bacterial, viral) and
non-infectious (environmental, nutritional and genetic) [91]. Farmers cannot give accurate
treatment for a sudden fish disease therefore it is hard to take treatment measures timely
and effectively. This results are that fish disease spreads widely and fish can die in huge
amounts causing a loss to the farmers [92]. Machine learning is a technique which can help
detect and alert fish disease to farmer on time.
Epizootic ulcerative syndrome (EUS) is one of the popular diseases which caused a
high mortality rate for fish which occurred in many countries such as Australia, India,
United Kingdom, Japan, Thailand and Pakistan. It is a fungal disease named Aphanomyces
invadans. Malik et al. [93] investigated a method to identify the fish diseases by combina-
tion two techniques including Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and classify by an
Algorithm Neural Network (ANN).
Figure 18 shows the proposed methodology. The input images (fish disease images)
were collected and then morphology operations were applied (converting the image into
gray, removal of noise and segmentation) [93]. The result showed that FAST-PCA-ANN
has better classification accuracy and efficiency than the existing combine technique HOG-
PCA-ANN.
Chakravorty et al. [94] identified four infected EUS species such as Clarias batrachus,
Puntius chola, Labeo bata and Labeo gonius from different parts of the Barak Valley, Assam.
They used two kinds of machine learning algorithms including Principal Component
Analysis (PCA) and K-means clustering with a flow chart for experiments showed in
Figures 19 and 20, respectively [94]. The results showed that the algorithm has more
than 90% accuracy for PCA. In conclusion, for detecting skin color and extracting texture
feature, HSV is a good choice. For detecting fish pathogen and extracting brain tumor,
morphological operation should be used.
Electronics 2021, 10, 2882 16 of 26

Figure 18. Proposed methodology.

Figure 19. Complete process of Principal Component Analysis (PCA).

Figure 20. Complete process of K-means clustering.

According to Divinely et al. [92], you can detect fish diseases (EUS ulcers—a fungal
disease) timely and effectively using a probabilistic neural network (PNN). The method is
shown in Figure 21 following these steps [92]. Input and database images are collected from
some sources and various internet resources, respectively. Then images are put through the
preprocessing to prevent unwanted distortions or to enhance some image features, which
are useful for further processing in which RGB to gray conversion has been applied. Several
extraction methods have been applied CWT (Curvelet Wavelet Transform) for efficiency
of detection and finally the target fish diseases such as ammonia poisoning, camallanus
worm and dropsy are classified. Others not infected are recognized and separated.
Electronics 2021, 10, 2882 17 of 26

Figure 21. Block diagram of proposed methodology.

Then GLCM (Gray Level Co-Occurrence Matrix) is used to reduce the dimension and
preserve useful information. A supervised learning algorithm (PNN) was used in this
study. The result shows that the proposed combination of CWT-GLCM-PNN is an efficient
and accurate way to detect fish disease.
Ahmeda et al. [95] identified diseases from salmon cultured in a farm. The work is
divided into two portions: image preprocessing and segmentation. The image processing is
to reduce noise and make image become much clearer. The segmentation extracts features
and classifies disease from images with the support of a Support Vector Machine (SVM) al-
gorithm of machine learning with a kernel function. Figure 22 shows a solution framework
to classify the salmon disease. Also, Figure 23 shows a system architecture which contains
two phases, such as building phase and deployment phase [95]. The results showed that
using SVM is an efficient method to identify the fish diseases with high accuracy rate.
Meanwhile, Figure 24 shows various appearances of image processing [95,96].

Figure 22. Proposed framework.

In short, machine learning is popularly used to identify the fish diseases. There
are several machine learning algorithms for example ANN, HOG, PCA, SVM. In some
cases, they can use to combine with machine learning algorithms such as ANN-HOG-PCA
which may show the high accurate percentage to detect the fish diseases, particularly
fungal disease.

2.3.3. Counting
It is necessary to count cultured species in aquaculture based on computer vision tech-
nology including video analysis and image processing due to counting [96]. Raman et al. [97]
deployed a counting system which is used for counting larvae and juveniles in fish
hatcheries by an image processing technology. It detects the image of larvaes and ju-
veniles and then sees and counts the number of larvae and juvenile fish from these images
by counting the separate single image.
Figure 25 shows the methodology of machine learning classified into four steps: image
acquisition, image enhancement, segmentation, and classification [97]. This is to count the
number of larvae and juvenile fish through image detection. The basic model of captured
images for experiments are shown in Figure 26 [97]. Via camera, larvae and juveniles are
captured. These captured images are transferred to a computer and software and finally
the results are obtained after analysis. The results show that the installed system has an
accuracy rate of 82% for larvae and 87% for juveniles.
Electronics 2021, 10, 2882 18 of 26

Figure 23. System architecture.

Figure 24. Various appearances of image processing.

Figure 25. Illustrates the methodology of machine learning approach.

Electronics 2021, 10, 2882 19 of 26

Figure 26. Illustrates the image acquisition of capturing the larvae image from hatcheries.

For counting feed in aquaculture, Cao et al. [98] used machine vision to count feed for
fish to manage the residual feed in aquaculture. A current contour is a single pellet. Based
on current contour area, they counted exactly the number of pellets in a heap. Figure 27
shows the flow chart of the counting strategy. Also, Figure 28 shows the underwater images
and aquaculture site [98].

Figure 27. Flow chart of counting strategy.

Figure 28. (a–e) The underwater imaging platform and the aquaculture site.

The waste of feed causes many problems for aquaculture: decreasing profits; polluting
the environment and affecting the health of cultured species. Therefore, the goal of this
study is to count the proper amount of feed for culturing fish using an algorithm. They
conducted experiments through different water turbidities, feed adhesion rates and others
with over 100 pellets. Using algorithms is a useful solution to solve the problems in
counting number of feeds from the real production in the aquaculture system. It is also
efficient in turbid underwater environmental conditions. It can apply in automatic feeding
systems with a high accuracy rate. This system can be deployed in practical production.
Electronics 2021, 10, 2882 20 of 26

Zhang et al. [99] proposed a model to count the number of fish automatically instead
of the traditional artificial sampling method. The goal of this system is to counting number
of fish in cages cultured in an offshore environment. A hybrid neural network model based
on a multi-column CNN and a DCNN is used to observe, realize and count the number
of fish in a population cultured offshore in real time, accurately, objectively and without
losses. Experiment video data is collected from an adult salmon cage by a submerged
camera from the bottom up (Figure 29) [99]. The result showed that the counting accuracy
rate is up to 95.06% of the proposed hybrid neural network.

Figure 29. Data acquisition diagram.

2.3.4. Classification and Identification

It is said that classification as well as identification find it difficult to get accurate
results by using traditional methods with the naked eye or costly by using genetic methods.
Therefore, machine learning and computer vision are one of the efficient methods to classify
and indentify fish in a short time with high accurracy rate.
For instance, Coz-Rakovac et al. [100] identified three aquaculture-affected species
such as 120 seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax), 98 sea bream (Sparus aurata L.), and 66 mullets
(Mugil spp.) thanks to biochemical data using machine learning methods. The decision tree
was used and gave the best results among the machine-learning methods with 210 samples
classified (85.71%) correctly and 35 (14.29%) incorrectly. There are 3 species which are
identified based on their biochemical traits. The methodology of this study is shown in
Figure 30 with decision tree and biochemistry analysis (AST, TP, TRIG, CHOL, and GLU
collected from blood) [100].
Allken et al. [101] used Deep Vision camera to take images from the marine stock of
marine stock. These images are materials for deploying a deep learning neural network
to automate the classification of species. The results show that a classification accuracy of
94% was achieved for blue whiting, Atlantic herring, and Atlantic mackerel, showing that
automatic species classification is a viable and efficient approach, and further that using
synthetic data can effectively mitigate the all too common lack of training data. Figure 31
presents the procedure to identify the fish [101]. The sample fish images extract from actual
ones and attach on the empty background at any position with random size and directions.
The goal of this processing is to make images that is similar to deep vision photographs.
The number of fish per image varies between one and six.
Electronics 2021, 10, 2882 21 of 26

Figure 30. Decision-tree model based on biochemistry data for three fish species.

Figure 31. To generate images that realistically resemble Deep Vision photographs.

3. Conclusions
Smart aquaculture has expanded greatly in the aquaculture industry in an efficient,
automated and accurate way in recent years. Although applications of artificial intelligent
in aquaculture is progressing quickly, there are still many challenges to operate fully
automated systems. Due to the nature of its practices and products, the lack of human
Electronics 2021, 10, 2882 22 of 26

management is high in risk, as there is still a need for a certain amount of observation,
information analysis, and decision making during the fish farming process.
The applications of machine learning and computer vision in aquaculture have been
contributing to the development of the aquaculture industry in an automatical trend, and
improving farming productivity. The advantage of using algorithms or images is more
accurate and faster than manual methods. However, the cost of machine learning and
computer vision is high, so it is only recommended to apply it to large-scale farms with
species of high economic value.
In this paper, we review the application of artificial intelligence into smart aquaculture,
particularly focused on machine learning/vision, and its applications for aquaculture.
Researchers and aquaculture famers studied the implementation of machine learning
with algorithms or machine vision in smart aquaculture. The most popular applications
measure the size and weight of cultured species; fish diseases; fish count; classification and
identification, feed controlling; and monitoring water quality.
In the future, machine learning and computer vision applications should be more
accessible in smart aquaculture deployed not only in hatcheries, farms on land, but also in
aquaculture systems offshore. In particular, we can apply machine learning and computer
vision for aquaculture on offshore areas such as cages to detect the fish diseases, manage
the safe of cages, weight and size of fish, etc. In fact, the detection of diseased fish or
the broken cage net system is really neccessary. Normally, farmers often use manual
methods for managing the whole aquaculcture processing. For instance, diseased fish can
be recognized as fish that are weak swim on the surface or people must dive into the cage
to check. Therefore, using machine learning/vision connected to a submered camera is
valuable. This system can recognize fish diseases, and safely manage the cage, weight and
size of fish directly and continuously, as a future model system for cage culture in offshore.

Funding: This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the Na-
tional Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (NRF-
2021R1G1A1006117). Also, this work was supported by a research grant from Seoul Women’s
University (2020-0143).
Institutional Review Board Statement: Not applicable.
Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable.
Data Availability Statement: Not applicable.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Abbreviations

CWT Curvelet-Wavelet Transform

GLCM Gray Level co-occurrence matrix
PCA Principal Component Analysis
ANN Artificial Neural Network
KNN K-nearest neighbor
VAMS Vision-based Automatic System
EFA Elliptic Fourier Analysis
DL Deep Learning
EL Ensemble Learning
DR Dimensionality reduction
LCD Liquid Crystal Display
RAS Recirculation Aquaculture System
ORP Oxidation Reduction Potential
DO Dissolved Oxygen
EUS Epizootic Ulcerative Syndrome
TL Total Length
BW Body weight
Electronics 2021, 10, 2882 23 of 26

H Height
W Weight

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