When we informed our test customers about this, the immediate response was that everyone wanted to pre-order robots for their facilities, which is phenomenal, says Kim André Eide, sales manager at Watbots.
Watbots held an unveiling and opened pre-sale of their net washing robots during the aquaculture fair AquaNor on Tuesday 24 August. When we informed our test customers about this, the immediate response was that everyone wanted to pre-order robots for their facilities, which is phenomenal, says Kim André Eide, sales manager at Watbots.
The fish farmer secures each net with one dedicated robot, which washes and scans the net 24/7, without any need for human management. We are working to set a completely new industry standard, says Håvard Lillebo, CEO at Watbots. If, for example, you have a hole or wear in the net, you will be notified immediately. The robot washes the net completely clean, and in this way you avoid the need for service vessels, possible infection between plants, smaller particles in the water, better fish health, and better HSE for the employees, says Lillebo.
Watbots builds “learning robots”, which means that data will be transferred to and from the database every time the robots enter the docking station. Thus, they become a little “smarter” for the next round in the net. Watbots has developed a lot of new technologies, and the company now has five patents pending. These are important patents that will protect our inventions, which means that we have to keep our cards close to the chest, Lillebo explains. I can reveal that one of the patents addresses the use of AI to measure the net thickness. It’s super cool, and something no one has done before us! It is advanced technology and we are looking forward to revealing more in due course, Lillebo concluded.