Team Members: Chiao-Yi Wang, William Chen, Vijay Dev Reddy Chevireddi, Guru Nandan A D P (graduated), Sandip Sharan Senthil Kumar (graduated)
The long-term goals of this project are to i) enhance nationwide shellfish farm production while preserving environmental health, ii) sustainthe economic viability of shellfish farm operations, and iii) enhance the quality of life for growers and society as a whole through the development and implementation of a smart sustainable shellfish aquaculture management (S3AM) framework. To achieve these interrelated goals, an interdisciplinary team consisting of investigators with diverse expertise in a range of relevant fields (Engineering, Computer Science, Biology, Environmental Science, and Aquaculture) and readily engaged stakeholders from three coastal regions (East, West, and Gulf) has been brought together to pursue five supporting objectives through integrated research, education, and extension activities.
In this project, our lab will focus on smart harvesting to improve efficiency, increase harvest animal rate, and reduce input costs of harvest while minimizing environmental impact. For current on-bottom production, as farmers lack precise knowledge of market-sized crop locations and control of dredging paths, dredging is usually done repeatedly to increase the chance of harvesting more of the crop. The activity can be environmentally damaging to oyster habitat and water quality and has lethal and sub-lethal impacts on nearby oysters and other biota. The S3AM harvesting will create an optimized path for the dredging vessel to perform high-efficiency precision harvesting, which maximizes coverage, minimizes the dredging path, and reduces labor and energy used during harvest.