Tidal was created to help address one of the planet’s growing challenges: how to sustainably feed a rising global population while reducing pressure on increasingly depleted wild fish stocks. By combining AI, machine learning, and underwater sensing technologies, Tidal brings greater visibility and intelligence to aquaculture operations, helping farmers improve fish health, operational efficiency, and environmental stewardship.

As part of this effort, we developed an AI-empowered underwater vision system designed specifically for the demanding realities of open-ocean aquaculture. The project centered around a robust hardware ecosystem consisting of intelligent underwater cameras, autonomous positioning systems, integrated lighting, and machine perception tools capable of operating continuously within harsh marine environments.

From an industrial design perspective, the challenge extended far beyond housing electronics underwater. Every aspect of the system needed to balance durability, serviceability, hydrodynamic performance, deployment efficiency, and animal sensitivity. The camera architecture was designed to capture highly responsive top, stereo, and bottom views while minimizing visual stress on the fish through carefully considered lighting strategies.

A custom autonomous winch system continuously repositioned the cameras throughout the pen across both vertical and horizontal axes, enabling the platform to collect tens of thousands of fish observations daily. Together, the system transformed previously limited underwater visibility into actionable real-time insights, helping aquaculture operators better understand feeding behavior, fish health, growth patterns, and overall farm conditions.