D5_GR4_FINAL_DOCUMENTATION_spreads

GRUPPE 4
DESIGN 5 - SYSTEMS DESIGN
25.11.15
CHRISTER REBNI
GERGANA TATAROVA
KAROLINE RYE FINCKENHAGEN
ROSIE BOUGHTON
TRULS JOHANSEN
01

YGGDRASIL
02
THE FUTURE
04
CONCEPT
06
SCOPE
07
KEY IDEAS
08
SYSTEM OVERVIEW
010
YGGDRASIL
TABLE OF CONTENTS
COMPONENTS
PROCESS
014
018
A submerged, windmill-powered fish farm
set 15 - 25 years in the future.
MODEL BUILDING
COLLABORATION
020
021
02
EVALUATION
023
03

THE FUTURE
PREDICTIONS AND POSITION
04
It did not take much research to figure
out that an offshore setting means a serious
increase in complexity, especially if
you continued to operate under the
current fish farming paradigm. But
would you? Let us say we look 15 - 25
years into the future.
We had to find our position on future
fish farming - and see which parts of the
paradigm we could change. If one watches
Hans Rosling and his visualizations
of UN data, the trend is for a denser
populated, but more healthy and better
educated world. A denser population
means more demand for food and less
area to grow it, while better overall health
and education leads to a higher demand
for healthy and sustainable food with a
concern for animal welfare.
The other important future prediction is
relating to energy. Fish farming is not the
only industry that needs to be
transformed when moved offshore.
There will also be wind farms. The
shipping industry must transform as well
in reaction to emission restrictions, and
eventually shift further away from fossil
fuels.
The other important future prediction is relating
to energy. As fish farms move offshore,
so does windmills for energy generation.
Could there be a synergy? And as emission
restrictions tighten and fossil fuels are
phased out, the shipping industry too must
invest in green alternatives. Will we see
commercial sail ships once again? Can the
windmills charge ships?
At the same time, we expect the problem
of lice to continue, and as with all such
biological issues, once you solve one, another
one soon takes its’ place. In addition,
weather exposure at the ocean surface will
probably be even more extreme in the
future.
We challenged ourselves to make a proposal
for the whole offshore fish farm.
05

SCOPE
15 - 25 YEARS IN THE FUTURE
This is an offshore submerged fish farm
in a 15 - 25 years future. We challenged
ourselves to look at the full system. All
modules have been designed to play into
and support the system as a whole.
06
CONCEPT
Therefore we set our scope to include
only enough detail to ensure that the
components open up opportunities instead
of ferming them shut.
To design for the future, you must first
put in the effort to research how the
world is evolving and make some tough
predictions about the future based on this
newly gained information.
07

COMMERCIALIZATION
As the industry matures and standardization
ensues, larger portions of the fish
farm will be sold as integrated products.
This is important for our solution. We
envision it not as a one-off, but as a
system sold to multiple sites around the
world - a system with a substantial market
share to offset the investment cost.
08
KEY IDEAS
STANDARDIZATION
Aquanor gave the impression of an
industry still on the rise. We saw
diverging paradigms (closed vs. open,
offshore vs. onshore farming), still many
small vendors - some of them even doing
well with unpatented solutions. Every
fish farm, every well boat and every barge
seems to be a custom job - at least up
until now.
As industries mature, they standardize.
The competition between paradigms,
between technologies and processes,
results in winners. The winners become
standards. In 15 - 25 years, we expect this
to have happened in fish farming. This is
why our system contains more
standardized modules with standardized
integrations between them.
AUTOMATION
There is a large potential for automation
in the fish farming industry. By studying
the material gathered from Aquanor and
learned through our excursion to Hitra,
it is apparent that manual labour is a big
part of today’s operations; both physical
labour and manual integration of sensors,
systems and actuators. As we move
towards more standardized systems, there
is an opportunity for more automation.
And as we move offshore, where labour
is more expensive, automation becomes a
more profitable investment.
09

SYSTEM OVERVIEW
We built a physical model of the system,
showing the elements we chose to focus
on within our scope.
Our fish farm is a system of several cages
clustred around a windmill. We decided
that bringing the system further offshore
justifies scaling it up to approximately 1
million fish per cage.
The windmill supplies power to the fish
farm as well as sending most of its generated
enery to the mainland. Operations
are automated, and the need for manual
labour is minimized. Transportation and
storage are standardized.
In our concept we also include
multi-purpose submersible containers:
transportation pods. These are carried
by much more nimble ships than today’s
well-boats.
Fish wellfare is improved through a more
natural handling of the fish, and lice are
eliminated by submerging the cages underneath
the depth of the lice zone.
010
011

WINDMILL
CATAMARANS
The windmill is our Yggdrasil.
It provides power to all of the elements
in our system, feed to the cages, and also
- permanently or at times - physically
connects all of the features.
Pods are transported by nimble
catamarans - becoming trimarans when
grasping onto the semi-boatshaped transportation
pod. Thay have a sail capability,
and an electric propulsion that is
recharged at the windmill.
CAGE
They contain the fish in an environment
that facilitates fish welfare, with the
artificial airtight air-bubble as our main
feature here. The pods dock to the roof of
the cage, securing an escape-proof way of
harvesting the fish.
FEEDING SYSTEM
The transportation pods hold food from the
mainland. At the fish farm they dock to the
windmill, feed is tranferred into the feed
storage within the windmill, and distributed
to the cages through feeding tubes.
TRANSPORTION PODS
ROBOTIC ARM
012
They hold both smolt and feed as it is
transported out to the fish farm. They
store feed for a while when they dock to
the windmill and transport harvested fish
back to shore.
It sits on top of the cage, and takes care
of all daily and periodic maintenance.
013

COMPONENTS
01. TRANSPORTATION PODS
The tanks are used for transporting food
as well as live smolt and fish. On site,
they are used for food storage, docked to
the windmill and attached to the food
distribution system. The tanks are multi-purpose,
and have buoyancy regulation
to allow submerging and surfacing on
demand.
To deliver smolt and pick up harvest
ready fish, they are connected to the cages
in a submerged state. Physical reduction
of space in cage or container is combined
with more fish-friendly techniques like
electromagnetic manipulation and controlled
feeding to move the fish between
cage and tank.
03. WINDMILL
The windmill is a lot taller than onshore
ones, being 250 metres tall.
It is therefore able to generate a lot of
power, and is a sustainable source of
energy for both the fish farm and locations
on the mainland. The feeding system
is centred at the windmill. The windmill
also pumps air into the cage for the
features where this is needed.
02. CATAMARAN
Tanks are transported by nimble
catamarans - becoming trimarans when
grasping onto the semi-boatshaped tank.
These catamarans avoid the added weight
needed to store the container in the ship;
iAnstead it is simply docked to the ship.
The catamarans have a sail capability, and
electric propulsion that they can recharge
at the windmill.
014
015

06. CAGE
The cages are submerged to get them
beneath the lize zone, and away from
airborne predators and harsh weather
conditions. An airtight air-bubble with
artificial lighting inside provides a controllable,
simulated water surface. This
supports fish welfare. feeding and creates
a natural habitat for the fish.
016
04. FEEDING SYSTEM
When feed is transported to the fish farm
with catamarans, the feed is stored inside
transportation pods. The pods cluster
around the windmill and connect to it.
The feed is stored inside the pods until
it is needed. When needed, the food is
transferred to a feed storage compartment
within the windmill, and is distributed to
the cages via feeding tubes.
05. ROBOTIC ARM
With nets, there is always cleaning and
fixing to be done. Examples are removal
of dead fish on a daily basis, and manual
repair of equipment such as the feeding
connections. Our robotic arms can traverse
the net and reach all parts of it on
their own. Fixing them to the top of the
cage means avoiding having to constantly
fight the current like an R.O.V. would.
We spent quite some time looking at
different cage solutions and decided not
to focus on the netting or cage operations
themselves, but rather to propose a
solution that opens many opportunities
and serves the system as a whole.
1 million fish per cage
5% fish to 95% water
Diameter: 72 metres. Height: 30 metres
Top of cage: 20 metres below the surface
017

THE PROCESS
18
PROCESS
This course was set up to be an iterative
process for all groups. We spent some
time initially studying fish farming and
today’s problems in general, and then
started thinking up and researching possible
solutions to those problems. Many
of the final concepts were thought up
in that early phase, and for some facets
of the system we came up with several
alternatives which were shuffled around,
decided and re-decided through the
process.
The overall process was typical of the
“double diamond” model of design thinking.
We diverge to explore all facets of
a problem, before we converge on a well
founded problem definition.
After this, one diverges to explore several
possible solutions, before again converging
on the final proposal, just like we
did. The iterations over this process can
vary a lot - you could go through both
phases, then re-do the solution definition,
or go back and revisit the problem
definition.
In our project, we did many small iterations
- although we did not have to start
completely anew.
Around mid-term, we had a presentation
for Hans Vanhauwaert Bjelland, the SIN-
TEF manager in charge of the “Exposed”
project which was our external partner
for D5.
Some components got questioned - like
the proposed “monorail” attached to the
power cable for fish and food transport.
This was the first major external challenge,
and prompted another reiteration of
our solution definition.
Professor Matthijs van Dijk later did a
workshop with us where we really got
into details on the future predictions,
statement and behaviours. In effect - we
revisited and reiterated on the problem
definition, strengthening in it and reaffirming
the decision to simplify some
components to make the system concept
stronger.
019

MODEL BUILDING
We wanted the model to catch attention
and communicate our concept. The first
goal required a level of detail and realism
above what we could achieve with grey
unpainted cardboard, it could not be too
abstract. The last goal required that we
pushed the most important modules into
the most dominant visual positions and
avoided unimportant distractions.
We have a fantastic workshop with many
opportunities at IPD, and with this this
model, we have really taken full advantage
of it. Sea floor modeled in SolidWorks,
digitally sliced and laser cut. Cages hand
stitched from lace fabric. A meticulously
lathed windmill, and the boats, pods and
pod docking facilities were 3D-printed in
a powder bed printer.
Logics
Control
Logical
Analytical
Fact-Based
Quantitative
Sequential
Organized
Detailed
Planned
Holistic
Intuitive
Integrating
Synthesizing
Feeling-based
Interpersonal
Kinesthetic
Emotional
Vision
People
In the beginning we were maybe a bit too
unfocused. Some say we were chaotic.
We would say that we experimented with
creativity and the double diamond model
of design thinking. How much divergence
could we get - how could we tear open
the current paradigms of fish farming -
and still converge on a final product we
were proud of and could defend?
We were a group with strong personalities,
and a good span of the scale from
introvert to extrovert. If you look at a
typical personality test with four personality
types (see illustration), our group did
perhaps lack a clearly green personality,
but we have group members who are
certainly capable of taking more control
when needed. In the end, we were very
happy with our result although some
activities were started too late or not kept
under enough control.
020
COLLABORATION
There was, of course, a lot of “killing
your darlings”. Some members of the
group felt this happened too often for
their babies, but it was often necessary
to clean up the concept, make it easier to
understand and communicate in the final
presentation.
021

EVALUATING OUR RESULTS
022
HAPPY TEAM
We are very proud of our achievements
in this project. We managed to get many
iterations and very diverging solutions to
result in a convergence towards an
understandable concept; a concept that is
well aligned with the predictions and position
we set in our session with Matthijs
Van Dijk.
We overcame issues with cooperation to
utilize everyone’s strengths. This was especially
important since we were a mixed
group with both exchange students and
NTNU students who did not know each
other from before.
We feel that our model is a beautiful rendition
of our concept, showing the scale,
but at the same time the simplicity and
scalability of it. It caught a lot of attention
at the presentation.
We wish we could have gotten to do
more research and had even better
calculations to show. However, at the
same we feel that we can defend the
proposals we came up with as a possible
and promising vision for the future of
offshore fish farming.
023