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fish grader
from Netherlands [2 posts] |
13 year
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Dear Roborealmers,
We are blank in the field of robotics and need advise.
We like to develop a Guppy grader that sorts guppies (yes, the little fish, see attached picture) by color, size and possibly sex. The idea is that guppies flow one by one through a transparent tube past a camera. Software must then check the fish size, shape and color and based on the findings decide where to guide the fish next (up to 4 aquariums). Up to 2000 fish will pass the camera in once session and the computer has to store and present the data (100 red, large fish went to tank 1; 450 blue, small one to aquarium 2....
We would like to challenge you to come with suggestions on how to tackle this problem, both regarding software and hardware. At the moment we do this guppy grading job by hand, so we are willing to put a reward; 1000 USD for the best input 500 USD for the runner-up. Remember, we have to end up with a working solution that we can hopefully show you once it is developed. As the forum is open you will be able to see whats happening and we'll anounce the winner there.
Hoping for some interesting inputs,
Yours sincerely,
Rene Remmerswaal
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Jay from Australia [4 posts] |
13 year
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When will this competition close?
To me the biggest problem is physically indexing a single fish to swim past the camera automatically - not the computer vision part.
How are you getting a single fish into the tube for analysis from a bowl of say 2000 fish? Does this need to be part of the final solution or can we assume you will place the fish one-by-one into this tube?
Jay
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from Netherlands [2 posts] |
13 year
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Hi Jay,
We have no specific closing date. We'll let it depend on the reactions. The quicker a solution starts to show, the sooner we'll close. No reactions so far.
Regarding delivering the fish individually to the camera, that is our job. Just assume that the camera delivers pictures to the software of individual fish (zooming by at 25 cm/s) and take it from there.
Greetings, Rene
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Jay from Australia [4 posts] |
13 year
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Hi Rene,
Sounds like a good challenge. A few more questions before I produce any solutions. Do we need to design the water lock that pumps the fish into its appropriate aquarium? Ie once the fish is identified and the roborelm solution gives the correct ID that corresponds to an aquarium, is that the end of the "robotic" solution or do you then require a robotic solution to guide the fish into it's appropriate aquarium at say 1 fish every second?
I think I can do this. Do you have a budget for the final solution? If you are suggesting using roborelm then I'm going to assume you already have a netbook or laptop already and you will not be including this in your budget.
Jay
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Bill from United States [2 posts] |
13 year
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Not an entry but just an idea. Your problem was actually solved about 35-years ago by the people who produce intelligent machines for graneries. Grains get bin burn which has to be separated from the good grain or in the case that I worked on; PEAS. The peas are dropped very fast through a shoot that compares color to a low range and a high range. Peas that are rejected are hit by a small blast of air that knocks the bad colored pea out of the stream into a rejection bin.
The equivelent for your fish is that they swim down a tube past a camera that controls a servo via a micro-controller which positions a valve to direct the fish to the correct tank. Grading can be by color range, size or any other criteria you can dream up and measure. Many problems then begin to surface: 1) fish are not peas so you have to close a gate behind each fish to be sure another fish does not change the gate position. 2) what if the fish decides he is not going to swim down the tube to the holding tank? does the gate just stay closed until he decides to move on or dies of old age? 3) if you try and force them through by pouring water with the fish through a pipe; how many get cut in half by the gate?
In any case; just an idea or possible direction to start exploring.
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