A REVIEW OF AUTOMATED CONTROL-SYSTEMS FOR AQUACULTURE AND DESIGN CRITERIA FOR THEIR IMPLEMENTATION

Agriculture in the United States has become the world leader in produc tivity through intensification, mechanization and automation. A simila r path is appropriate for aquaculture since automation of aquaculture systems will allow the industry to: site production closer to markets, improve environmental control; reduce catastrophic losses; minimize e nvironmental regulations by reducing effluents; reduce production cost s; and improve product quality. The history of automated control in aq uaculture has been brief; most of the systems have been custom-designe d, personal computer systems. The current trend is toward the use of i ndustrial process control systems composed of: sensors/transducers, me ters/transmitters, communication multiplexers, actuators/output device s, computer hardware and computer control software. These process cont rol systems cart be as simple as one computer or as sophisticated as d istributed control systems (multiple networked microcomputers). The ch oice of the system's architecture should be based on price performance , considering labor, product value, environment and vendor support. Su ccess in designing pragmatic and af affordable automated control syste ms for aquaculture will be widely applicable because it will enhance w ater management, reduce costs associated with manual monitoring and re duce significantly the chance of catastrophic system failures.