IT for sustainable fishing and more respectful of the oceans

At present, fishing is a real societal issue, particularly with regard to random catches of species without distinction of fish, correlated with the impact on the ecosystem and on the seabed.

Teams of scientists are interested in developing artificial intelligence for more sustainable and ocean-friendly fishing, i.e. fishing sensibly without depleting the oceans. This is the challenge of the collaborative project "Game of Trawls" (acronym for Giving Artificial, Monitoring intElligence tO Fishing Trawls) led by Ifremer in partnership with the OBELIX research team (IRISA/UBS), Marport and theCDPMEM56 (Morbihan departmental fisheries and marine breeding committee).

The OBELIX research team brings its expertise on technological advances in the field of artificial intelligence to be adapted to fishing gear. This project proposes several approaches, including real-time measurement of the impact of the fishing gear through a network of sensors and computer vision to detect and identify in real time the species entering the net.
Thus, thanks to this network of sensors and artificial intelligence, fishermen are informed in real time of the high abundance of schools of fish and fish species. They can then, with the help of an escape device (codend closure, diversion trap, light flash, acoustic signals, etc.), sort the fish underwater to keep only those that interest them or raise the fishing nets to stop scratching the seabed.

 See or re-watch the report on TF1, broadcast on 23 august at 8pm (in french)