The project is taking place at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation's (CSIRO’s) Tasmanian ICT Centre. There scientists are developing automated submersible sensors that can accurately measure the feed consumed by prawns.

The industry uses a variety of methods for measuring feed consumption, all of them manual and labour intensive. These estimates of consumption are used to decide how much feed should be given at the next feeding.

The two major inputs into prawn farming in Australia are feed pellets and labour. The efficiency of the industry can be improved by reducing these costs.

Sensors that provide continuous information about feed consumption in prawn ponds will bring a number of benefits, including reducing overfeeding and reducing nutrient levels in farm effluent.

The next stage of the project will focus on: deploying the sensor at a working prawn farm; evaluating the performance of the unit against existing manual methods; and developing algorithms for estimating the sizes of prawns from images of the feeding tray.

The project is part of CSIRO’s Food Futures National Research Flagship. The combined impact of CSIRO’s prawn projects is expected to double the value of the Australian prawn industry by 2020.

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