Success! PROBOT is Live!

Awesome news! The drone is now out inspecting and cleaning nets! Pilot testing has begun.

Mikkel Pedersen

CMO & Founder

Great Success!

Before the summer vacation, we started our long-awaited piloting testing at one of our partner Ballangen Sjofarm's sites. And now we can finally share the first results!

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Probot on fish pen net — This shows how the function where the drone slides on the net sides to keep it clean works. This picture was taken on deployment, and the net already had a lot of algae growth, but we still saw that we cleaned off a lot of algae even without brushes! That's awesome! (remember, we are not supposed to clean, we are keeping it clean by preventing it from getting dirty in the first place).

After a month of constant use and testing, we can establish that our concept truly works! This means we are nearer to achieving a truly "Autonomous net inspection and cleaning solution"! -That's Awesome!
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PROBOT in dock — *This picture shows the testing of the mechanical docking solution. This docking worked excellent to keep the drone secured in place. It even withstood a heavy storm! - that’s what we like to see!*

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Significant findings after the first month of use:

Probot can operate in 90cm/sec of water current when cleaning.
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Probot can operate in 180cm/sec of water current when inspecting. That’s like a river!
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The Submersible docking works excellent and holds the drone secure in place even in a heavy storm.
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Probot cleans the net even without a brush! (Still, a Brush is coming on soon, but we follow a strict test plan).
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We can now send live video and data from our drones everywhere.
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Our detection algorithm works and finds holes already in the Beta version.
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The system is robust, and we already see that PROBOT can be able to live a long life in the pens under all conditions. -these have been our most important development criteria!
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The hydrodynamics of the drone is fantastic! Its slides in the water like a knife in butter.

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The most impressive finding is how much current we could clean the net in. Almost 1 meter/sec of water current is a lot!

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PROBOT inspecting fish pen net — We are testing the inspection algorithm - Distance keeping and angle keeping while another algorithm searches for holes in the net. Now we need a lot of training, so the software handles all everyday situations by itself.

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The pilot testing is performed on an site in Ofotfjord with high currents and harse conditions. Over 105cm/sec of current have been measured on the site. The prototype we are currently testing is in our seventh series of prototypes. This is the last prototype series before our production model launch.

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