McBride Fishing, Donegal, get on board with the WiSAR Lab, LYIT who are developing a new wireless system that will track crab pots deployed at sea. L-R:
Brian McBride, Captain, Dr. Jim Morrison, Head of Electronics & Mechanical Engineering LYIT, Dr. Nick Timmons, Principal Investigator WiSAR Lab, Pete McBride, Sufian Al Aswad, WiSAR Lab Centre Manager.
An innovative solution is being developed by the WiSAR Lab at Letterkenny Institute of Technology (LYIT) that has potential to revolutionise the Irish Fishing industry.
The loss of crab pots during the fishing season is a recurring problem for the industry.
This wireless system is designed to monitor the entire crab fishing process, by recording the number of fishing pots deployed during the hauling operation.
The system also counts and records the number of caught crabs, in addition to record seabed temperature, location and depth readings using various wireless and GPS technologies. It has been part funded under Enterprise Ireland’s Innovation Partnership.
McBride Fishing Ltd, a family business form Downings, experienced an on-going problem of losing crab pots which has major implications for cost and efficiency.
The company approached WiSAR Lab at LYIT in 2012 to investigate if there was a way where technology could be used to solve this problem. After a number of discussions, WiSAR Lab identified a new wireless solution.
Peter McBride Jnr, of McBride Fishing speaking about the new project outlined some of the systems’ potential uses for them.
“When completed this technology will generate daily/weekly reports that will create a stocktake of our crab pots allowing us to maximise man hours, as previously this would have been a manual process.
“This technology will allow us to gauge both the lifespan of the crab pots and of our ropes, which in turn lets us focus on the best equipment available thus both keeping costs and wastage at a minimum.
“This technology will also count the number of crab coming into the vessels and also returned to sea alive giving us exact percentages of caught crab so we should be able to see where the more beneficial fishing ground are and to focus on them saving fuel, bait etc.”
The company says it is a very exciting venture, particularly for the younger members of our team as they will be able to see the statistics form in front of them giving them a better fishing database/knowledge.
He continued, “Getting the backing of Enterprise Ireland has made this all possible, and we would like to thank all involved. It’s also fantastic to have WiSAR LAB on our doorstep, and nothing seems to be a problem that can’t be overcome. It’s a new exciting time for us and the engineers involved.”
Sufian Al Aswad, WiSAR Lab Centre Manager explains, “The introduction of wireless sensor technology into the fishing industry is in itself innovative. Developing an accurate counting system for fishing pots, caught crabs, sea bed temperature readings and GPS mappings, is going to play a major and a vital role assisting the Irish fishing industry in shaping future strategies.”
“It’s great to see cutting edge technology being applied in a novel way,” adds Michael Gallagher of Bord Iascaigh Mhara commenting on the McBride Project, “If a solution is found within this project then it should have wider applications. McBride Fishing Ltd. is constantly innovating both on board their vessels and onshore to improve their business.
“This is key to their success, as they are marketing a challenging product-essentially they have to get their living product to as far afield as China! I think there is real scope for the fishing industry to develop further projects with WiSAR Lab and other high tech solution providers to resolve many issues and add real value to the sector”.