3D-COAST (3-Dimensional Cultivation of Oysters Automated with Solar Tumbling)

Commodities

• Animals: shellfish

Practices

• Animal Production: aquaculture

Development of a three-dimensional oyster cultivation raft that incorporates automated, solar-powered cleaning and tumbling of oysters, the 3D-COAST system is comprised of oyster baskets hung on vertical, rotating, conveyor belt-like mechanisms that cycle the baskets through the water column and into the air. The conveyor provides gentle tumbling action to improve oyster shape and quality, the cages are exposed to the sun at the top of the cycle to reduce bio-fouling, and the 3-dimensional use of the water column increases capacity and decreases footprint. 3D-COAST is an innovation that will allow TWIYO and other aquaculture operations to realize farm profitability sooner and with greater margin by increasing growing density and reducing costs per oyster while improving product quality.

Objectives:

1. Construct the next 3D-COAST prototype raft that builds on the early existing proof of concept and incorporates fixes and improvements that bring the solution closer to commercialization and reliable deployment.
2. Monitor the mechanical successes and struggles of the raft while deployed on an oyster farm for a season, brainstorming solutions to make the technology more robust and reliable in the real world.
3. Measure labor benchmarks while using the raft for a small batch of oyster production in order to build a model that calculates farm efficiency, production levels, and labor costs for various farming scenarios.

Outreach around this technology will include hosting farm tours, presenting the findings at NACE 2026, and building a webpage that provides prospective users information about how they could deploy the system on their farm.

Objective 1: Construct the next generation 3D-COAST prototype raft that increases the technology readiness level from 6 to 8, with an eye towards future manufacturability, reliability, and commercialization in a real oyster farm environment. This can be accomplished in a cost effect manner by upgrading an early proof of concept prototype raft to the latest specification. Meeting this objective will mean a new generation of raft with functional improvements stationed at the farm site ready to generate data needed to meet the next two project objectives.

Objective 2: Measure reliability and evaluate any new issues. TWIYO has a measure of reliability for the system in early development stages, quantified as a running percentage of down time over a span of a couple of operational summer months. These reliability figures need improvement, without reliability this system will never be adopted by farmers. A target outcome will be a chart plotting measured down time over the course of a three-month period that can be used for estimating farm maintenance costs, compared to the previous version of the raft. Specific breakdown events will be detailed and in-situ fixes or improvements listed with a plan of how to resolve any issues during the next phase of development.

Objective 3: Integrate and refine the integration of the 3D-COAST raft into existing farm workflows and measure labor benchmarks for farm efficiency and production modelling. Improvements in oyster growth and reductions of biofouling have been demonstrated on previous prototypes, however, careful measurement demonstrating how the prototype would fit into a farm’s existing workflows and what quantitative cost savings could be expected needs to be measured concretely. This information is critical for demonstrating and marketing the commercial opportunities of the system, as well as information needed by farmers planning a new installation. A successful outcome of this objective will be plots of time benchmarks and a MATLAB computer model that simulates the production levels and needed inputs of hypothetical farm scenarios using this data. This model will allow future customers (and TWIYO ourselves) to game out what their farming operations could look like using the 3D-COAST system, a valuable marketing tool as TWIYO attempts to invite adoption of 3D-COAST within the aquaculture community.