Optimisation of Small-Scale Aquaponics Systems Using Artificial Intelligence and the IoT: Current Status, Challenges, and Opportunities

Abstract

Environment changes, water scarcity, soil depletion, and urbanisation are making it harder to produce food using traditional methods in various regions and countries. Aquaponics is emerging as a sustainable food production system that produces fish and plants in a closed-loop system. Aquaponics is not dependent on soil or external environmental factors. It uses fish waste to fertilise plants and can save up to 90–95% water. Aquaponics is an innovative system for growing food and is expected to be very promising, but it has its challenges. It is a complex ecosystem that requires multidisciplinary knowledge, proper monitoring of all crucial parameters, and high maintenance and initial investment costs to build the system. Artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) are key technologies that can overcome these challenges. Numerous recent studies focus on the use of AI and the IoT to automate the process, improve efficiency and reliability, provide better management, and reduce operating costs. However, these studies often focus on limited aspects of the system, each considering different domains and parameters of the aquaponics system. This paper aims to consolidate the existing work, identify the state-of-the-art use of the IoT and AI, explore the key parameters affecting growth, analyse the sensing and communication technologies employed, highlight the research gaps in this field, and suggest future research directions. Based on the reviewed research, energy efficiency and economic viability were found to be a major bottleneck of current systems. Moreover, inconsistencies in sensor selection, lack of publicly available data, and the reproducibility of existing work were common issues among the studies.

Horticulture Irrigation Systems and Aquaculture Water Usage: A Perspective for the Use of Aquaponics to Generate a Sustainable Water Footprint

“…Aquaponics could be a food production systems that permit a better understanding of water usage and water optimization using different hydroponic system designs for plant production [141,149,199]. The implementation of these system designs depend on the local space and characteristics, the availability of freshwater and the regional climate because of water evaporation (145).…”

“…The most common aquaponic system design is based on water recirculation in a single loop between the fish tank and the hydroponic plant production system [147], also called coupled aquaponic systems using fish residues directly as plant nutrition [148]. Coupled aquaponic systems are characterized by their simple handling and production management, but it has been observed that one of the biggest challenges is the optimization of environmental and water quality conditions for fish and plant production due to the single loop recirculation system [149].…”

Horticultural Irrigation Systems and Aquacultural Water Usage: A Perspective for the Use of Aquaponics to Generate a Sustainable Water Footprint

“…Aquaponics could be a food production system that permits a better understanding of water usage and water optimization using different hydroponic system designs for plant production [140,148,197]. The implementation of these system designs depends on the local space and characteristics, the availability of freshwater, and the regional climate because of water evaporation [144].…”

“…The most common aquaponic system design is based on water recirculation in a single loop between the fish tank and the hydroponic plant production system [146], also called coupled aquaponic systems using fish residues directly as plant nutrition [147]. Coupled aquaponic systems are characterized by their simple handling and production management, but it has been observed that one of the biggest challenges is the optimization of environmental and water quality conditions for fish and plant production due to the single-loop recirculation system [148].…”