Use of Augmented Reality in Aquaculture

In augmented reality, computer-generated objects are used to enhance the perception of real-world experiences, through added clarity and data. In the last years, the technology have been gaining popularity, especially in development of mobile apps, but also in industry applications. Industries such as oil and gas, military and manufacturing have seen the advantages that AR may offer through added support and instructions during operations. An industry that has yet to explore the benefits of AR is aquaculture. AR have the potential to reduce cost, save time and enhance support in underwater drone operations such as net and mooring inspections. With AR the control personnel may achieve a better overview and more efficient completion of the operations through added AR information. To increase the production of fish, aquaculture sites have to be located further from land at more exposed places. This increases the need of reliable technology that could make benefits related to remote operations and surveillance with manual or autonomous drones, and AR is a promising technology in that regard.

This thesis aims to explore how AR could enhance the underwater ROV operation of fish cage net inspection and repair. Two AR systems have been implemented to explore, test and evaluate different kinds of ways to use AR in net inspections and repair: The AR INFO system and AR INTERACTION system. The AR INFO system is implemented to look at how AR could achieve enhanced handling and displaying of information under inspections of the net. The AR INTERACTION have been implemented to see how AR could be used to enhance support in interaction operations such as net repair. The AR systems are evaluated separately, conducting two different experiments: The INFO and INTERACTION experiments. In the experiments test persons solve a set of different tasks using both an AR system and a system without AR. The tasks are almost the same for both systems, but some adaptions have been made to make the test procedure of the two systems comparable. The system without AR works as a benchmark, to evaluate if the AR system achieve better performance and usability. In chapter two of the thesis, relevant theory related to drone operations in aquaculture, AR and usability testing are presented. In the following chapters both AR systems and experiments, with test procedures, are described in detail.

One of the main contributions of this thesis, is the concept sketch and proposal of an improved AR system based on the findings and evaluations of the AR systems implemented in the thesis. The AR systems in the thesis have been evaluated through different kinds of evaluations. The NASA-TLX app have been used to accurately evaluate the workload of the systems. Screen recordings of video feed from computer used in the experiments and objective observations have been gathered during the experiment. After the experiments, the test persons have conducted a subjective evaluation, evaluating the AR systems based on usability goals described in detail in section 2.5.1. The main result was that the AR system must have a simplistic user interface to avoid information overload, and that only AR components that contribute directly to the operation should be part of the AR system. Supporting information is best suited as static UI text on a panel of the screen, and not as augmented components in the scene. The proposed, improved AR system may contribute to new ideas and inspirations on how to implement an AR system related to remote underwater interaction drone(UID) operations in aquaculture.

Throughout this project, AR have shown to be a promising technology for operations in aquaculture. The AR INTERACTION system performed better than the system without AR in the categories related to completions time of tasks, workload and usability. Nevertheless, the AR INFO system got a more mixed response. In parts of the experiments, the test persons suffered from information overload decreasing the performance of the AR system. All the results are presented and discussed in the Results chapter. The goals of implementing, testing and evaluation AR systems aimed towards net inspection and repair are assumed achieved. The results obtained from the experiments, show that the AR systems have a way to go related to usability and performance, but that the implementations offer a basis for further enhancements of the AR systems. Discussion on bias and validity of results conducted in the experiments, as well as how AR could be used in the best way to enhance operations in aquaculture, are presented in the end of the thesis. Suggestions for further testing of AR related to ROV operations in aquaculture are also presented.