Internet of Things for Aquaculture

Abstract

Aquaculture is the growing of fish in a controlled water environment. In order to ensure successful fish production, water quality parameters must be constantly assessed to ensure that the fish are grown in adequate conditions. Traditional methods for water quality assessment require periodic manual water inspections to retrieve water samples. Tests are then conducted on these samples in order to assess the water quality. These methods are effort and time consuming in addition to the manual inspections being costly especially in case of having to occasionally outsource a third party to perform the water assessment tasks. The system proposed in this thesis serves as a more efficient alternative to evaluate water quality. It is based on the Internet of Things (IoT) technology where a single node has different types of sensors connected to it in order to constantly measure the different parameters. The node has also a number of actuators connected to it in order to keep certain water quality parameters within reasonable range. Through the Modbus TCP communication protocol, data acquired by this node is relayed to a certain client allowing remote monitoring. This client device allows the users to access the data, perform different analysis on them as well as control the actuators. In addition, this system presents as well an interactive alarm system informing the initiated of any irregularities plus controlling the actuators in case of any critical conditions. Upon installation, it is pretty simple to use and access the node’s information whilst maintaining the necessary security measures. The use of Modbus TCP as the communication protocol between the client and the node has rendered