LobsterNet is a textbook case study in how to leverage the power of the IoT to build a better – – well – – lobster trap. LobsertNet is a solution that was built because the lobster fishing community needed an application that could transmit data from sensors to shore without causing disruption to the lobstermen – and do so more cost efficiently than the present option. Up until LobsterNet, sensors deployed in the oceans were required to use satellite technology to transmit data. However, satellite sensors are expensive, and they only transmit data when the sensors are recovered, which is usually months between recoveries. The following article describes how one company employed new IoT technologies to design and deliver a better solution.
Producing more than half of the world’s oxygen and almost 200 billion pounds of seafood each year, the oceans are incredibly important to our livelihood, so we need to understand how they are changing. To date, getting visibility on ocean conditions, in particular the ocean floor, has come with a high cost for sensors and delays in data reporting.
The Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association currently has 1,800 members fishing out of fifty-two ports using more than 300,000 traps off the state’s 192 miles of coastline. Lobstermen have a mass of traps reaching the ocean floor regularly, but they were not equipped with the technology to track valuable data regarding the ocean’s health, the habitat of shellfish.
