Cookies Policy
The website need some cookies and similar means to function. If you permit us, we will use those means to collect data on your visits for aggregated statistics to improve our service. Find out More
Accept Reject
  • Menu
Article

INESC TEC in project to develop an innovative solution for fish larvae creation

INESC TEC’s Centre for Robotics and Autonomous Systems (CRAS) is part of the FEEDFIRST project that aims to create a technological kit (integrated solution) to allow the rearing of marine fish larvae, such as the gilt-head bream and the sole to their first feeding using only dry food in innovative tanks that are integrated in a monitoring system.

08th August 2018

In addition to INESC TEC, the project is composed of the companies SPAROS from Algarve, RIASEARCH from Aveiro, as well as ISEP from Porto, in the development of this solution that should ensure a great water quality and a good self-cleaning capacity, allowing the better use of the high potential of growth of these animals, reducing mortality and problems of skeletal malformations while maintaining a reasonable production cost.

Nuno Dias, coordinator of the INESC TEC team, believes that the main innovative points are in the definition of "new micro diet technology that allows a near-neutral buoyancy of the water and a non-linear movement", as well as the improvement of the hydraulic characteristics in the cultivation tank that allows the use of food at the first feeding and an easy management ", and an" intelligent system for the hopper of cultivation that allows the monitoring of the evolution of the larvae and automated feeding systems".

Due to be completed in 2020 and with an EUR 181,913.95 fund (out of a total investment of EUR 1,101,534.36), the INESC TEC team is coordinated by Nuno Dias and is composed of researchers Ana Paula Lima, Carlos Pinho, Diana Viegas, Hugo Silva and João Ribeiro. From ISEP, the researchers from CRAS Alfredo Martins, Eduardo Silva, José Miguel Almeida and Luís Lima participated in this project.

The INESC TEC’s researchers will conduct the first tests, in September in the RIASEARCH facilities in Aveiro, on a tank prototype.   

This work is co-financed by the ERDF – European Regional Development Fund through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation - COMPETE 2020 under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, and through the Portuguese National Innovation Agency (ANI) as a part of project «Feedfirst: POCI-01-0247-FEDER-034050».