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Aquabyte LICE

Platform
Sales planner
Performance
WISE Welfare

Fewer treatments with automatic lice counting and two-week lice forecasts

Aquabyte LICE provides accurate, daily updated lice counts without the need for manual handling of the fish. Combined with lice forecasts up to two weeks ahead, the system offers a solid foundation for decision-making, enabling optimization of both the timing and type of treatments. The result is more effective treatments and fewer delousing events throughout the production cycle. This creates value by improving fish health and significantly reducing company costs.

In 2021, Aquabyte LICE became the first automated lice counting system to be approved by Norwegian authorities as an alternative to manual counting.

Benefits of using Aquabyte LICE

  • Provides a solid decision-making foundation, making it easier to assess whether delousing can be postponed, expedited, or avoided altogether.
  • Delivers updated lice counts daily instead of weekly.
  • Offers detailed insights into the actual lice situation and trends over time.
  • Eliminates manual handling, reducing stress and injuries to the fish.
  • Saves employees from time-consuming and physically demanding work.
  • Ensures more accurate and reliable lice counts.
  • Counts lice on more fish than traditional manual methods.


Technology that builds trust in lice counts

Aquabyte LICE is not a “black-box” system. As a user, you have access to the images that form the basis for calculating lice counts.

The automatic lice counting is based on images captured by the Aquabyte camera in the pen. These images are analyzed using artificial intelligence and machine learning, providing accurate counts for adult female lice, mobile lice, stationary lice, and Caligus (sea lice).

Aquabyte LICE is not a “black-box” system where the basis for lice calculations is hidden from the user. Through the Aquabyte User Portal, you have access to both the images used for lice count calculations and the algorithm results from all measurements. By ensuring transparency in how lice counts are calculated, we build trust with fish farmers, regulatory authorities, and industry experts.

Reduce the number of lice treatments

Feedback from users indicates that the number of lice treatments can be reduced during a production cycle with Aquabyte LICE. Daily lice counts combined with up to two weeks of lice development forecasts make it possible to optimize treatment methods and timing for maximum effectiveness, both in the short and long term.

With clear insights into lice status and trends, treatments can be postponed and, in the best-case scenario, avoided altogether. The direct costs of lice treatments are significant, and reducing the number of treatments during the production period can save the company substantial expenses.

In the Aquabyte User Portal, you gain access to daily updated lice counts and graphs that display trends over time.

Value-creating decision-making tool

Aquabyte LICE provides an overview of lice status at both pen and site levels, offering a solid foundation for prioritizing where treatments should be implemented first.

By combining lice counts with weight and welfare data from Aquabyte WEIGHT and WISE Welfare, you gain a unique, value-creating decision-making tool. Comprehensive insights into lice conditions, fish size, and welfare status enable the best decisions to be made from a holistic perspective. The result is significant benefits in the form of improved fish welfare and a higher proportion of superior-grade fish at harvest.

Lice predictions

Aquabyte LICE is the only automated lice counting system that provides predictions for future lice development. Using historical data, trends, and current lice status, it calculates the likelihood of exceeding the permitted lice threshold one and two weeks ahead. If the lice threshold changes during the season, this can be configured in Aquabyte LICE at both pen and site levels.

The lice counts are presented in a way that make it easy to compare the status from pen to pen.

More accurate – Less resource-intensive

Aquabyte LICE delivers daily lice counts with greater accuracy than traditional weekly manual counts—completely without handling the fish. This improves fish health and welfare while saving employees from time-consuming and physically demanding work.

Simplified reporting to authorities

Aquabyte LICE simplifies the process of reporting lice counts to authorities. Lice reports are easily generated within the system, providing detailed status for the four lice types for each individual pen. These reports can be stored in Aquabyte LICE and used as a basis for the mandatory lice count submissions.

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Q&A

Machine learning is a form of artificial intelligence. It is software, a network of algorithms, that is trained to recognize and interpret patterns in images and data sets. The technology behind it is the same that is used in facial recognition on social media, to analyze surroundings for self-driving cars – and to recommend movies and music on Spotify and Netflix based on your previous selections.

In a normal software, a calculation is performed on the basis of data that is entered into the software. In machine learning, software and algorithms evolve as they are “trained” with new datasets. This training becomes a form of pattern recognition, where the algorithms learn what to look for based on prior examples. As new training data and examples are provided to the machine learning software, the algorithms generate more and more precise results.

Let’s say that the algorithms are trained to recognize salmon lice. The algorithms are given training data, consisting of many images of salmon with annotations of lice in different stages. Through feedback in the form of these examples, the algorithms become increasingly accurate in recognizing salmon lice. It is important that the photos are taken under real conditions in the cage: changing lighting conditions, different angles of the fish, for example.

The quality of the algorithms is important. Algorithms may need to be adjusted along the way to emphasize biological factors in the data that make the results more accurate. For example, consider an algorithm that recognizes individual fish based on unique spot patterns. If algorithms are to recognize the same fish over time, these algorithms must also have the capacity to understand how these spot patterns change with the growth of the fish.

Images are taken with an underwater camera in the cage. Per Erik Hansen, Product Manager for Lice and Welfare at Aquabyte, mentions that the company uses a standard two-lens camera with particularly good optics to be able to measure 3D distance to the fish. The camera continuously takes images, and is placed in an optimal location such that as many fish as possible can swim past. Software running on the camera filters out unused images and analyzes the best ones.

“Customers who have used the system for a long time report that the results turn out to be in line with reality,” Per Erik Hansen continues. Farmers get daily lice numbers for each cage, with lice counts on far more fish than possible with manual counting. “The software distinguishes individual fish from each other, such that the same fish is only counted once. This contributes to Aquabyte delivering lice numbers with great accuracy,” notes Hansen.

Precise counting of salmon lice and accurate estimation of weight data and distribution are two use cases that have received fully developed solutions. Fish welfare is another important application area, including detection of winter sores, deformations, and other external changes on the fish. By giving the farmer much better insight and basis for decision making, it will be possible to improve daily operations, and in general achieve more efficient and sustainable fish farming.

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