GITAM develops AUV for early disease detection in shrimp ponds

Visakhapatnam: Prof P Bharani Chandra of GITAM Deemed to be University has developed an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to monitor shrimp ponds and detect diseases early. The system tracks key water parameters such as pH, dissolved oxygen, turbidity and temperature across multiple pond locations. Data is transmitted to farmers in offline mode via radio frequency, with instant alerts when any parameter crosses threshold limits.The collected data is transmitted to farmers in offline mode using radio-frequency communication. In addition, the vehicle is programmed to generate immediate alerts whenever any parameter exceeds the predefined threshold levels. In conventional shrimp farming practices, farmers manually collect water samples once every few days or weeks and send them to laboratories for analysis. Obtaining laboratory reports may take several more days, by which time the spread of disease or deterioration in water quality may already have intensified, resulting in significant crop losses.Although fixed underwater sensors have previously been developed elsewhere in the country, their monitoring capability is limited to the specific locations where they are installed and may therefore not accurately represent the overall pond conditions.Speaking to TOI, Prof P Bharani Chandra, who is also serving as director of the Centre for Autonomous Systems at GITAM, said that the newly developed autonomous vehicle overcomes this limitation by navigating throughout the pond and collecting spatially distributed real-time data. “This mobility enables comprehensive monitoring of the entire aquaculture environment, improves the accuracy of disease detection, and allows farmers to take timely preventive measures. For example, contamination in shrimp ponds may often be confined to a specific area, while water samples collected manually from another location may fail to detect the problem. As contamination in aquaculture ponds generally spreads gradually, early detection can help farmers take timely remedial and culture-management measures to minimise losses,” said Prof Chandra.Prof Chandra worked or is working on various defence applications and autonomous vehicle technologies. These include an AI-based customised smart face-recognition system, a smart tracking system using GPS, a customised smart motor-vehicle number-plate detection system, AI-based camera-embedded underwater vehicles to study flora and fauna, seabed conditions, debris, and other threats, as well as AI-enabled drones. Some of these projects are being executed alongside several IITs. A team of researchers, including Dr LL Rajeswara Rao, Dr B Uday Kumar, and Dr S Harshavardhan, are collaboratively working on these projects.Mirza Anwar Taher Abbas, founder and CEO of CTOSkyAI, incubated at GITAM’s Centre for Autonomous Systems, said that the autonomous vehicle for shrimp ponds has been tested both in laboratory conditions and in real pond conditions in Srikakulam. “The prototype development and deployment have been completed, and we are looking to commercialise the product in the next phase,” said Abbas.