i-FishSAT

Objectives of the service

The primary focus of the project was to develop a solution for profit enhancement for fishermen and their crew by developing a solution for commercialising fresh seafood whilst still at sea, directly from fishing vessels. The objective of which is to ensure that due return is delivered to stakeholders that provide value-added services. The seafood commercialisation solution provided real-time comprehensive fisheries data that was exploited and augmented to develop additional services to ensure that produce can be traced through the supply chain, tools to help fishermen meet their compliance obligations, as well as capabilities to reduce the cost of fishing operations through better planning of fishing trips to optimise possibility of landing desired catch.

The primary objective of iFishSAT is to democratise and streamline the process of seafood commercialisation such that stakeholders, such as agents that add cost but not much value, are ultimately removed from the value chain.

Users and their needs

The target users include the following:

Producer organizations
Fishing vessel operators including skippers and crew
Retailers of fresh seafood produce
Seafood vendors
Compliance and monitoring authorities
Transport providers

Needs:

Requirement for a simple and easy to use mechanism that allows produce to be sold to remote buyers as soon as it is caught in order to attract the best price (vessel operators and crew).
Requirement for a number of different options for selling produce such as sale at a fixed price or via auction (vessel operators and crew).
Requirement that payments from remote buyers are consistent with current operational practises where the payment is received no more than 48 hours after produce is sold (vessel operators and crew).
Requirement for a mechanism for searching and buying for the most fresh seafood available using criteria such as desired species, preferred port of arrival, target price and date of catch (buyers).
Requirement for cost-effective real-time two-way communication on-board a vessel during fishing trips even when outside of terrestrial connectivity (vessel operators and crew).
Requirement for the number of pieces of existing equipment/devices on-board to be reduced, to safe space and cost, by integrating these are far as possible (vessel operators and crew).
Requirement for a mechanism to support persistent tracking of vessels and to deduce fishing operations being undertaken (compliance authorities)
Requirement for a mechanism for tracing produce through the supply chain so that superiority of quality and freshness can be evidenced (vessel operators and crew).
Requirement for mechanisms to optimise planning of fishing trips to reduce possibility of wasting time and fuel without landing catch (vessel operators and crew)

Service/ system concept

The service concept is as show in Features and How it works sections above.

Space Added Value

Communication satellites are used to provide connectivity between vessel and shore specifically supporting communication when vessels are outside of the terrestrial network coverage.
Navigation satellites are used to enable retrieval of vessel location instantaneously, as well as deduce its speed and route, information that is used for traceability of produce and for security.
Earth observation satellites, combined with meteorological and oceanographic forecasts as well as statistical analysis of previous catch, is used to predict the most productive fishing areas, thus allowing vessel owners to better plan/optimize fishing trips saving time and fuel.