Shinkei Systems: AI Computer Vision & Robotic Automation for Aquaculture

Laptop and phone showing fish harvesting telemetry dashboard and live computer vision feed

Client: Shinkei Systems
Industry: AgricultureFintechManufacturing & Industry 4.0
What we did: Computer Vision Pipeline EngineeringEdge AI DeploymentEmbedded Systems ProgrammingHardware-Software IntegrationReal-Time Signal ProcessingTelemetry & Cloud DashboardUI/UX Operational Control System
Tech stack: PythonPyTorch / TensorFlowC++OpenCVCUDA / TensorRTReactTypeScriptPostgreSQLAWS IoT Core

Automating humane fish harvesting through real-time computer vision, precision robotics, and Ikejime quality control.

Prologue

The global seafood industry faces critical challenges: labor shortages, severe product waste, and inconsistent quality stemming from traditional, manual harvest techniques. The traditional Japanese technique of Ikejime—which humanely paralyzes fish and bleeds them instantly—is universally recognized for maximizing freshness, shelf life, and taste, yet manual execution requires elite training and cannot scale commercially.

Shinkei Systems engineered an automated hardware and software platform that brings Japanese master-level harvesting to commercial fisheries and aquaculture farms at scale. Driven by high-speed edge computer vision and custom robotics, Shinkei's systems recognize species, map internal anatomy in real time, and perform precise, automated Ikejime processing in fractions of a second.

The result is a paradigm shift in marine food tech: eliminating cruelty, quadrupling fish shelf life, and significantly raising market values for local fishermen and commercial aquaculture operators globally.

Processing speed per fish: < 1s
Shelf-life extension via automated Ikejime: 4x
Humane harvest & zero-pain execution: 100%
Species anatomical vision models: 100+

Monitor, tablet and phone showing aquaculture analytics and deck control screens

The challenge

Scaling precision biological processing at sea presents immense engineering and operational hurdles:

Environmental Harshness & Vessel Motion

Deploying delicate optics and high-precision robotics onto commercial fishing vessels requires hardware capable of surviving saltwater corrosion, heavy vibration, pitch and roll motion, and extreme temperature fluctuations.

High Morphological Variation

Unlike manufactured goods, every fish entering the pipeline varies in size, weight, curvature, and anatomical orientation. Computer vision algorithms must achieve sub-millimeter precision instantaneously despite motion and light distortion.

Commercial Throughput Demands

Manual harvesting bottlenecks entire fishing operations. To be commercially viable for commercial fleets, an automated system must match or exceed human sorting and processing speed without sacrificing anatomical accuracy.

Phone showing varied fish silhouettes with uncertain detection outlines in dark interface

Browser window showing complex processing pipeline diagram with bottleneck warnings

Our solution

Shinkei Systems combined high-speed embedded robotics, custom neural networks, and rugged industrial engineering into a plug-and-play processing platform.

Real-Time Biological Computer Vision

Shinkei developed proprietary machine-vision models trained on thousands of fish scans. The optical system identifies species, measures dimensions, and locates critical neurological target zones within milliseconds of entry.

Sub-Millimeter Edge Robotics

Custom robotic actuators adapt dynamically to each fish’s unique geometry, executing precise, automated Ikejime puncture and bleeding without manual intervention.

Maritime-Grade Ruggedized Architecture

The hardware unit is enclosed in IP67 water-resistant stainless steel built for deck installation, featuring low-power edge computing chips to execute real-time inference without needing cloud connectivity at sea.

Fleet Telemetry & Quality Analytics

The platform logs catch data, species metrics, and quality scores to an integrated cloud dashboard, giving fishery managers complete visibility over yield quality and inventory valuations.

Two phones showing fish target detection and automated robotic processing status

Results

Shinkei Systems has set a new global standard for marine robotics and sustainable food processing.

Industrial-Scale Throughput

Achieved sub-second processing speed per fish, enabling commercial vessels and land-based farms to automate full harvests at scale.

Quadrupled Product Shelf Life

Standardizing the Ikejime method automatically reduced lactic acid buildup and spoilage, extending raw fish shelf life up to 400% for premium culinary distribution.

Global Industry Acclaim

Recognized by major innovation awards, venture investors, and Michelin-starred culinary partners as a pioneering force in sustainable aquaculture tech.

Monitor displaying polished dashboard with rising throughput and quality score charts

Laptop and phone showing fleet map, catch valuations and species yield overview