Smart Aquaponics with Disease Detection

The vision of the Mauritian's Ministry of Agro-Industry and Food security is to further develop the agricultural sector and to promote the agro-industry by focusing on safety, supply, quality, innovation and new technologies. This research work attempts to develop a smart aquaponics system that combines conventional aquaculture with hydroponics. The system uses the Internet of Things to continuously sense and control the environment and to provide real-time feedback and alerts to the owner through a mobile application. It features a camera surveillance system that enables live streaming of the aquaponics setup and also allows for further image processing. Through the captured images, the system performs leaf recognition identifying the type of the leaf. Moreover, the system also performs disease detection that identifies if the leaf, and consequently the plant, is suffering from a specific disease. If the system detects a disease, it automatically generates a report which is sent to the owner through the mobile application. The prototype has been tested and looks very promising. We hope that this work paves the way towards a smart aquaponics system that detects, identifies and notifies the owner of possible diseases at early stage before their propagation.