:::

【2021 Application Example】 Fongyu Uses AI Knowledge-based Fish Farming to Effectively Increase Aquatic Production by 10%

Fisheries is an important industry in an island economy. However, the fish farming industry has faced severe challenges in recent years, including climate change, labor shortage, and rising costs. In particular, nearly 110,000 workers in agriculture will retire due to old age over the next 10 years. For this reason, the need for aquaculture to move towards smart farming is becoming increasingly urgent.

Founded in 2014, Fongyu Corp. Ltd. has developed a unique eco-friendly farming model based on its own fish farming. It uses AI knowledge-based fish farming to effectively increase aquatic product production by 10%, and reduced labor cost by 15%.

The word "Fongyu" has a profound meaning. "Fong" represents good mountains and "Yu" represents good water, and is the hope that companies will allow Taiwan to always have good mountains and good water.It is also a homophone for "having a full figure," expressing the hope that products will give consumers a full and healthy body and mind. The founder of the company, Liu Chien-Shen, has been through the difficult entrepreneurial journey of becoming an apprentice in fish farming, raising funds, renting fish farms, establishing a fish farming company, building a brand, and expanding sales.

Labor shortage and aging workers are hidden worries in the fish farming industry

Currently, fish farms in Taiwan are still mainly traditional fish farms, and farming techniques are still passed down through word-of-mouth. In addition, the labor shortage and average age of workers exceeding 60 years old has made it impossible to effectively stably improve productivity and yield. This farming method makes it difficult to prevent and control diseases, and greatly increases the possibility of excessive use of drugs, environmental pollution, and water quality and ecological damage, creating a vicious cycle that lowers the quality of fish farming.

In addition, 65.1% of workers in Taiwan's fish farming industry are inadequately skilled. With limited support from IoT sensors, traditional fish farmers still mainly rely on their own experience and knowledge for water quality management, feeding, and disease detection. Fish farming management relies heavily on the ability of individual fishermen. Once experienced workers retire, the industry will not only face the issue of succession, but also the difficult of stably supplying a certain amount of harvest that meets quality standards. This may cause a dilemma for the entire industry from fish farming to sales.

In order to improve the pain point of inability to pass on experience in fish farming, and at the same time create a "digital" foundation for fish farming, the top priority must be to collect farming behavior data and develop AI services as an important starting point.

Fishery digital twin technology helps fishermen transition to smart farming

With the assistance of the Institute for Information Technology (III), Fongyu implemented the "fishery digital twin" technology to dynamically adjust the farming schedule. In other words, the fish farming schedule is adjusted according to the species, habits, and variables of the fish. The use of AI in fish farming not only effectively increase aquatic production by 10%, but also reduced labor cost by 15%.

In terms of specific methods, we first digitalized the fish ponds, feed, and decision-making behavior for each species, such as sea bass and Taiwan tilapia, and recorded the seasonal temperature changes from releasing seedlings to harvesting, all of which were digitalized, gradually recording the experience and methods of experienced workers into a rich database. Based on the recorded data, we analyzed the compound variables to find the best farming behavior and generate a dynamic farming schedule.

Recording each pond's farming master's data experience.

▲ The records for each pool provide data on workers' experience.

However, fish farming behavior generally relies on rules of thumb. Even experienced fish farmers cannot ensure that they will find the best solution. Therefore, new methods are proposed to solve this issue: That is, "to determine the best fish farming behavior by predicting the interaction with water quality and past data on feeding, and evaluating fish farming behavior based on water quality and fish farming," and provide fishermen with the most intuitive recommendations through daily schedules. To continue optimizing the dynamic fish farming calendar on a rolling basis, iterations of the model will be developed through the three-step cycle:

(1) Input the current fish farming calendar into the model;

(2) The model predicts the future environment;

(3) Shortcomings of the fish farming calendar are corrected based on the future environment to obtain a new version of the fish farming calendar.

In the process, the experience of aquaculture experts is used to establish the causal relationship between fish farming behavior and the environment. The establishment of a dynamic fish farming process and technology-based fish farming recommendation services provide a traceable and detailed fish farming process. It is one of the few technologies that can digitalize fish farming. Fishermen can quickly and easily record their daily behaviors to build knowledge without taking up too much time, but in the long run it can reduce labor cost by 15% and increase output and revenue by an average of 10%.

Smart fish farming has achieved outstanding results, reducing labor cost by 15% and increasing output by 10%

At the same time, the fish farming calendar can also be extended to different aquatic species, such as white shrimp, milkfish, clams, and Taiwan tilapia, to produce fish farming schedules for ponds with different specifications, and the harvested aquatic species can be traced according to different specifications, establishing vertically integrated services for safe food products. Fongyu's main products are divided into two categories. One is aquaculture modules, including fry, feed, materials and probiotics, production planning and processes, and monitoring, which can be sold separately or exported as modules.

Summit Fisheries' high-quality marine products consistently win awards. (Image: Summit Fisheries official website)

▲The high-quality aquatic products produced by Fongyu have repeatedly won awards. (Figure: Fongyu’s official website)

The other category is high-quality aquatic products, including seabass fillets, seabass balls, oil-free seabass balls, seabass dumplings, and seabass soup. The products have won various awards, including the top ten souvenirs in Pingtung in 2017, "Barramundi Fillet" won the 2017 Eatender of the Council of Agriculture (COA), "Oil-Free Barramundi Fillet" won the 2018 Eatender Gold Food Award of the COA, and "Dumplings of Barramundi" and "Barramundi Broth" won the 2019 Eatender of the COA. The consecutive awards represent that the "quality" of Fongyu’s aquatic products can be seen and eaten with peace of mind.

In addition, Fongyu has exclusive fingerlings that meet international needs, such as: Pure seawater cultured tilapia fingerlings and seawater Taiwan tilapia fingerlings from selective breeding (FY-01) are items that aquaculture companies in many countries are looking forward to. The company also has aquaculture modules, disease monitoring tools, and feeding materials designed in accordance with the environment, in order to provide customers with more stable income.

Recommend Cases

這是一張圖片。 This is a picture.
Testing Seat Contact Components AI Intelligent Flaw Detection

With rapid development in 5G, AIOT, automotive electronics, and other downstream sectors, the entire supply chain is expected to benefit from this consumer market As product demand momentum gradually increases, increasing production efficiency and reducing operational costs become the most important issues In order to meet the needs of customers for various packaging types, Yingwei Technology has been committed to developing highly customized test seats However, a resulting pain point is the inability to mass-produce and fully automate operations with machines some tasks still rely on manual execution In this project, the probe part of the test seat was outsourced in 2021, and under current and future large-scale demands, work hours, costs, supply, and quality are issues Yingwei faces The company achieves a defect detection rate of 9995, which seems high, but with an average inspector able to inspect 10,000 needles per day, there would still be 5 defective needles On a test seat that is only 3 cm wide with approximately 1,000 needles, just one defective needle could potentially lead to faulty testing at the customer end As the current operational mode relies on manual visual inspection, external factors such as fatigue or oversight of personnel, and subjective judgment by inspectors may lead to the outflow of defective products, which necessitates strict quality control of contact components We once sought to utilize optical inspections Rule-based for controlling the quality of appearances, but the metallic material of the contact components leads to light scattering, background noise interference, background scratches, and material issues that could result in misjudgments Therefore, we decided to look for AI technology service providers to solve our detection difficulties Developments of Dedicated AOI Line Scan Equipment To meet the needs for inspecting thousands to tens of thousands of probes within our company's IC test seats, traditional surface imaging and individual needle imaging would be too slow to achieve rapid inspection and labor-saving goals In response, the service provider proposed a trial with an AOI dedicated line scan module solution Utilizing a width of 63mm on the X-axis for reciprocal scanning of all probes on the test seat, the tests allowed for the simultaneous scanning of 8-9 probes, significantly enhancing the future detection efficiency of AOI machines This project will proceed with the aforementioned innovative Proof of Concept POC, focusing on the development of the line scanning equipment and performing imaging, learning, and training on both normal and abnormal probes provided by our company, with initial AI model training aimed at preliminary approval This project's customized line-scan imaging module Ideal future imaging result illustration A Single AI Technology Solution for MeasurementDetection Needs Unified use of AI DL CNN learning methods, instead of the current Rule-based system which necessitates defining each defect individually, to meet the needs for abrasion measurement and appearance defect detection of malfunctionsforeign objects When the same machine uses both measurement and detection technologies, not only does it increase costs, but it also affects the detection speed Hence, the service provider recommends the use of a line scan device for imaging Its resolution is sufficient for AI to simultaneously determine appearance defects and assess the condition of needle tip abrasion, as detailed below Line scan pixel imaging displaying needle tip abrasion conditions This AI detection technology meets both measurement and inspection needs for Yingwei, not only bringing more benefits to future probe testing but also introducing an innovative axis in AI technology Change the method of human inspection, enhance work efficiency and product quality After combining both hardware line scan and software AI model training approaches, we successfully ventured into new AOI detection applications Following the AI implementation POC, including the development and validation of a customized line scan module and an initial AI model, the plan is to officially develop the AOI machine next year and integrate it into the IC test seat production line Future Prospects Probe manufacturers upstream and downstream IC factory users both have needs for the AOI inspection machine upstream can ensure probe quality before leaving the factory, while downstream users can use this machine to regularly inspect the condition of numerous IC test seats in hand Given the future demands, the AOI machine is poised to have a significant positive impact on the IC testing industry in the foreseeable future 「Translated content is generated by ChatGPT and is for reference only Translation date:2024-12-12」

這是一張圖片。 This is a picture.
AI Assists the Red Cross for Smarter Emergency Response

More Preparation Less Loss The Taiwan Food Bank Association, a non-profit organization, collects donations daily from wholesalers, retailers, manufacturers, and even kind-hearted individuals across Taiwan They also rescue consumable materials that are about to be discarded, properly allocate and deliver to households in need, aiding local underprivileged populations When natural disasters such as earthquakes, landslides, mudslides, typhoons, floods, and droughts occur in Taiwan, the food bank's resources can be immediately deployed for disaster relief This field verification unit is the Nantou County Red Cross AssociationOne of the food bank locations, hereinafter referred to as the Nantou Red CrossIs responsible for tasks like pre-disaster supplies preparation and disaster relief material distribution, helping the government bear the responsibility of disaster relief and aid In Taiwan, various natural disasters have characteristics of different duration and spatial coverage, wide or narrow With the normalization of extreme weather, the scale and number of disasters are gradually increasing and becoming harder to predict The required amount and type of materials differ by disaster, and they must address the lifestyles of the affected areas, rescue needs, traffic conditions, geographical restrictions, and other factors for varied material allocation, facing numerous challenges Typhoon Kanu severely damaged transportation in Nantou mountain areas Nantou County Red Cross planned the mountainous route Puli gt Fazhi Elementary School gt Qin'ai Village gt Aowanda to deliver supplies Disasters happen repeatedly We need to be prepared at all times Effective disaster preparedness can mitigate the impact, including swift response to material needs in affected areas, aid distribution, and even psychological support, providing added security for life and property of those in disaster zones Lack of Timeliness in Disaster Information To improve the living conditions and address the lack of supplies in remote areas, the Taiwan Food Bank Association has partnered with the Nantou Red Cross and has successively established food bank points in Nantou City, Puli, and Ren'aiLixing, Ruiyan, XinyiWangmei, Tongfu, Shuili, Lugu and Caotun among others9establish food bank locations, providing supplies worth a certain amount per household every month6001000in New Taiwan Dollars However, many challenges still need to be overcome during natural disasters For example, when typhoons, earthquakes, and landslides occur, the information source for disaster relief dispatch systems relies on post-disaster reports The time lag between reporting, response, and execution prevents timely adjustment and distribution of 'disaster relief' supplies based on the needs of affected areas, affecting rescue efficiency due to lack of timely information The 'preparedness' supplies of the Nantou Red Crosssuch as dry food, water, instant noodles, etc,are recorded manually in terms of stock, expiration dates, and distribution,When a disaster occurs, there is a chance that 'preparedness' supplies have expired and cannot become 'disaster relief' supplies It’s also possible that both conditions mentioned above occur simultaneously, leading to a need for more time to reassign 'preparedness' supplies into usable 'disaster relief' materials On the other hand, upon receiving information about shortages in disaster areas, the supplies donated by the public often grossly differ from the actual needs of the disaster zone, leading to an excess of supplies The Process of Material Operations Before and After a Natural Disaster AIAnticipating Natural Disasters Reinforcing the Accuracy of Preparedness Material Dispatch Application API Technology connects to compute the state of the climate, the intensity of disaster rescues, prioritizing the main tasks of the Nantou Red Cross and the needed areas of search and rescue Coordinated with the existing heavy rain and typhoon simulation disaster training of the Nantou Red Cross, a 'Natural Disaster Emergency Preparedness Material Dispatch and Supplement Decision System' is establishedreferred to as the Emergency Preparedness Material System。 In material management, inventory data along with immediate supply data are entered into the Emergency Preparedness Material System for comparison and analysis, helping the Nantou Red Cross quickly recognize materials like cookiesdry food, beverages, frozen food, toilet paper, etc, and determining whether they should be 'preparedness' materials or regularly distributed materials Adding to this, information forecasting understands the potential disaster conditions in remote areas, facilitating food delivery, addressing both front-end food wastage and backend practical needs When a natural disaster occurs, it enables faster response and decision-making, completing material deployment, hence increasing the speed of material operation transition20。 AI Emergency Preparedness Material System Helps Rapidly Adapt Material Distribution Through the field verification of the Nantou Red CrossAIthe system, material management, and related applications are promoted to more emergency response organizations in different areas, while continuously improving the alert functions within the Emergency Preparedness Material System, strengthening the technological foundation for alerts, enhancing prediction accuracySystem immediacy, and optimizing the data collection and analysis process Simultaneously, it can collaborate with government agencies, meteorological departments, or other rescue teams to discuss integrating more data sources, establishing a mechanism to share resources and data promptly, sharing information in real-time, helping more emergency response organizations enhance their disaster response abilities, seizing the golden rescue time 「Translated content is generated by ChatGPT and is for reference only Translation date:2024-12-12」

這是一張圖片。 This is a picture.
AI-Based PCBA Surface Defect Detection Improvements

With the introduction of theAOIAIWith the introduction of the system, we can improve product yield, reduce costs, and from a business perspective, increase customer trust and sales revenue Moreover, AIit has advantages that are difficult to imitate, unlike other equipment that can be bought with money, making it hard for our competitors to catch up with us Our company's current development We are committed toIOTsmart manufacturing our systems already include smart materials systems, environmental humidity control systems, anti-miscarriage systems, smart procurement computation systems, smart inventory systems, solder paste management systems, and production management systems We have asked other manufacturers about the possibility ofAIinspectingPCBAsurface defects, each hoping that we would purchase their equipment, but none were effective upon verification After discussing with IT service providers, we defined it asAOIAIa feasible operational model Tzuhong Technology has invested inAOIAIan inspection plan to checkSMTtext on components, solder joints, polarity, missing partsand usingAIto replace manual learningAOIand define the 'potentially defective' parts, enhancing productivity and reducing misjudgment rates Industry pain points Taiwan faces a severe labor shortage, especially those willing to perform visual inspections are few and typically older, increasing the frequency of missed inspections Thus, the most critical bottleneck in the pursuit of high-quality electronics has become post-production inspections Previous consumer products with undetected anomalies were acceptable within a certain ratio However, in the automotive industry today, undetected defects could lead to fatalities hence, the automotive industry has extremely high quality demands To survive in the automotive supply chain, we must address the issue of undetectable anomalies Moreover, as wages in Taiwan continue to rise, we can only endeavor toAIreplace traditional manpower with technology, otherwise, even if the anomaly leakage problem is resolved, the relatively high labor costs will still prevent competitiveness in this industry Application technology and explanation Initially,Figure 1,PCBUpon emerging,Reflowsystem, it will undergoAOIwill undergo inspection, dividing into 'suspected defective' and good products At this point, the 'suspected defective' portion accounts for20manual review for these20parts, further classifying the 'suspected defective' portion into good and defective products With We aim to leverageAItechnology, to shift from manual re-inspection of these20technology, we aim to replace manual review of 'suspected defective' products withAIand after review, the results still yield 'good' and 'suspected defective' products, but now 'suspected defective' comprises only3thus reducing the workload of Tzuhong's employees from20down to only3In theory, it isAOIIn theory, after inspection, it is further reviewed byAIbut it appears to go throughAOIonly, so we call this technologyA0IAIDetectionFigure 2。 The original AOI inspection process The operator will place the testPCBboard intoAOIthe inspection equipment, outputtingAOI information on defective products, then manually re-inspect one by one to determine if they are defective AOIAI inspection process The operator will place the testPCBboard intoAOIthe inspection equipment, outputtingAOIinformation on defective products after, then proceed byAIfirst performingAOIre-assessment of defective products, outputtingAIinformation on defective products afterward, then manually re-inspect one by one to determine if they are defective Process differences By introducing theAOIAIsystem, not only can we enhance the efficiency and yield of visual inspection personnel, we also have this timeAIexperience in system introduction, we will also incorporateAIthe use of big data into Tzuhong's existing smart manufacturing systems, further enhancing the performance of our smart manufacturing systems and reducing the pressure on employees Difference between pre and post-introduction Promotion strategy 1 Similar field diffusion allSMTmanufacturers face bottlenecks in inspections leading to shipment delays introducing this system can solve the severe labor shortage issue and enhance shipment speed and quality, allowing self-promotion to customers or through equipment dealers to cater to relevant needs 2 Cross-industry expansion plans negotiate withAOImanufacturers to directly integrateAIthe system intoAOItheir systems, enhancing their market competitiveness Profit strategy 1 In collaboration withAOImanufacturers, collect licensing fees 2 Direct sales toSMTthe manufacturing industryAIsystems 3 ProvideSMTmanufacturing industryAOIAIsystem subscription model「Translated content is generated by ChatGPT and is for reference only Translation date:2024-12-09」