PHARE Active acoustics for improved fish selection

Tuna fishing, which takes place in tropical zones in all the world’s oceans, employs drifting rafts – called Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) – underneath which schools of tuna gather. The aim of the PHARE project was to develop a reasonably priced multibeam sonar installed on drifting buoys attached to the FADs to appropriately process acoustic data, classify the species and distinguish fish size.

During the project, a prototype chart-plotter fish-finder was created following a series of tests on tuna cages to validate the technologies selected for the purpose.

The project led to the development of an autonomous float in which to embed the sonar, with a view to its first industrial application (ORBIT drifting buoy). At the same time, algorithms were developed for processing the signal to evaluate the biomass.

Production of ORBIT buoys began in July 2017.

The float and the embedded chart-plotter fish-finder were designed to take other sensors and will therefore respond to the demands of new markets

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