How Drones Can Benefit Aquaculture Farms: Net Pen Checks

How can drones for aquaculture farms help a net pen operation?

Drones for aquaculture farms mostly solve one problem: seeing the condition of net pens and cages across a whole site without sending a boat or a diver to every pen first. An aerial drone flies a fixed route over the site and gives you an up to date picture of the pen groups, collars, walkways, buoy lines and surface mooring points. Your crew then sends divers and boat crews to the pens the imagery flags, instead of working the whole site from habit.

The sector is large enough for this to matter. According to the USDA 2023 Census of Aquaculture, as reported by an online agriculture news site, the US counted 3,453 aquaculture farms in 2023, up from 2,932 in 2018, an increase of about 18%. Total sales were up 26% from 2018 in the same census, according to a fishing trade publication that reported on it.

The census runs every five years, and the farm count has moved up and down since 1998, so the number of sites that need pen checks keeps shifting. A drone tends to earn its place where a farm has many pen groups spread across open water and a crew that spends much of its time on the water.

How is net pen inspection done today?

Most netpen and cage checks still depend on boats and people in the water. A crew runs out to each pen group, looks over the nets, collars and mooring points, and writes up what it finds. Wind, sea state and daylight decide how much gets covered in a day, so a large site can take many days to look at in full.

Divers are the most direct check, and they carry health and safety exposure every time they go in. A 2014 research project from a Norwegian research institute tested drones and tethered balloon cameras at an aquaculture research facility, driven by stricter documentation needs on health and safety, pollution and escapes. Documentation was the driver, so records that show what was checked and when matter as much as the check itself.

Rules set the pace as well. A salmon trade report describes regulators making surprise visits to salmon farms, which shows how closely inspections are watched. A drone does not change those rules, but it can change how much open water time the routine takes.

What are the main benefits for an aquaculture site?

The biggest benefit is focus. One flight pattern gives you a site-wide look, so divers and boat crews start where the imagery shows a problem rather than working every pen equally. You still confirm findings in the water, but fewer blind boat passes and fewer dives are needed to find what needs attention. In practice that means:

Records are the second benefit. Because the same route can be flown again, the images give you a consistent visual trail of each pen group over time, which fits the documentation pressure the 2014 research project cited. Dated images also make it easier to share a clear account with an insurer, a partner or an inspector.

• Site-wide coverage from one flight pattern, instead of a boat pass for each pen group
• Dive and boat hours aimed at the pens the imagery flags
• Dated, repeatable images of each pen group for your site records
• Less open water time for routine looks that do not need a person in the water

Which areas of a farm does a drone cover?

A drone works above the waterline and across the land around your operation. It is strongest on the parts of a site you can see from the air, and it leaves the underwater inspection to divers or underwater tools. The six areas below are where a drone usually earns its place on this kind of farm.

Each area gets the same treatment: a fixed route, dated images, and a flag list that tells the crew where to go next. That keeps the drone's job focused on triage, which is where its value to your crew is clearest.

How does a drone work day to day at the farm?

The routine is simple. A trained operator flies the same route over the pens each time, and the images go to a reviewer who tags the pen groups that need a closer look. Divers or the boat crew then visit only the tagged pens, and the findings go into the site log before the shift ends.

Timing matters. Calm wind and steady light make the images easier to read, so flights are usually planned for those windows, and a second flight can cover pens that were missed in the morning. Your operator sets the rules for each site during the free site assessment, including where flights are allowed and who on the team needs to know.

Keep the records tidy. Each image should carry the date, the pen group and the operator's name, so a later review can match a finding to a specific pen and flight. That habit turns a set of pictures into a log you can use.

Who works alongside the drone?

A drone does not replace the people on your farm. It works alongside a smaller team: an operator who knows the site, a reviewer who reads the imagery and keeps the log, and the divers and boat crew who do the underwater work. The drone changes how that team spends its hours, but the team is still the core of the operation.

The closest federal job category to this work is Farmworkers, Farm, Ranch, and Aquacultural Animals. According to BLS employment data for May 2025, as reported by a labor data aggregator, 32,810 workers were in that category. The category is wider than aquaculture, so the number describes the labor pool around this kind of work, not the staffing on any one farm.

Plan for cover. Someone on site should be trained to fly and to review images, so the work does not stop when one person is away. We train your staff during deployment and service the drone nationwide, so the site does not depend on a single person to keep it running.

What drives the time savings?

The savings come from three places: boat hours, dive hours, and the crew time spent reviewing and logging results. Each one scales with the number of pen groups, the distance between them, how often you check them, and how many days weather keeps boats and divers off the water. A farm with many pen groups spread far apart tends to have more to gain than a compact site.

We do not have a verified hours figure for netpen inspection to share, and the sources we reviewed did not publish one either. Some vendor material in this area reports time savings, but those figures are modeled rather than measured on named farms, so we do not use them as your forecast.

During the free site assessment, we map the site, count the pen groups and time a typical inspection with your team. We then model the hours that could move from your own numbers. Until your log confirms them, treat the result as an estimate, and expect us to label it that way.

What can a drone not do?

A drone cannot see below the waterline from above. The mesh of a net, holes below the surface, and most underwater mooring and anchor hardware need an underwater vehicle or divers. Underwater drones for net pens are still early, and detection tools in this area are still being tested, so do not plan on one replacing in water checks yet.

Judging fish health is also beyond an aerial image. A drone can show visible damage, debris and some conditions on the surface, but a trained person or a veterinarian has to assess the fish. Wind, rain and poor light can stop flights, and flying near water and people brings airspace and safety rules that vary by location, so each site needs a weather plan and a backup day.

Plan for the gaps. Use the drone to set the priority list, then keep the routine dives your own standards and local requirements call for, so no pen group drops off the schedule because a flight was rained out.

How do you get started with drones for aquaculture farms?

Start with the site, not the machine. We run a free site assessment that covers your pen layout, shoreline access, flight limits, the underwater checks you already do, and the crew who will fly and review the imagery. From that we recommend the drone that fits the site and the work.

We lease the drone through lease financing programs, then deploy and integrate it on your site, train your staff, and service it nationwide. The lease is quoted after the free site assessment, so the payment comes in that quote, and you can compare it with your own crew hours before you commit.

If you want to test the idea first, ask about a pilot on one site or one group of pens. A short pilot with your own crew and your own log gives you numbers that matter more than any published average.