Design and development of remotely operated vehicle to assess the water quality in aquaculture area

Abstract

Aquaculture has been recognized as a sector that can assist to diversify the Brunei economy from relying on the oil and gas industry. Previous research has indicated that water quality in aquaculture settings is a major limiting factor, thus, it is important to examine and determine the influencing elements that would harm them. However, traditional methods of assessing water quality are unsafe, expensive, labor-intensive, and the sampling measurements may not represent the overall aquaculture areas. Thus, alternative method in collecting the samples is applied using Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV). In this paper, the design of an innovative ROV equipped with sensors, cameras, and lighting systems in conducting in-situ measurement of the main water quality parameter are presented. The main objective of this ROV is to increase the safety of humans working in difficult-to-access underwater in obtaining measurements with a probe or to collect samples and analyze them in a laboratory. Temperature, dissolved oxygen (DO), nitrate, ammonia, and pH of water are among the assessed parameters. The sensors attached to ROV will take measurements at 15 sample waypoints in existing aquaculture areas. The data gathered may also be utilized to interpret the spatial distribution of measurements in the aquaculture areas. This project is expected to increase the productivity of Brunei aquaculture industry in the new future.