Cost-Effective Fish Volume Estimation in Aquaculture Using Infrared Imaging and Multi-Modal Deep Learning

Accurate fish volume estimation is essential for sustainable aquaculture management, yet traditional methods are invasive and costly, while existing non-invasive approaches rely on expensive multi-sensor setups. This study proposes a cost-effective infrared (IR)-only pipeline that reconstructs depth and Red Green Blue (RGB) from low-cost infrared videos (<USD 100 per camera), enabling scalable biomass monitoring in dense tanks. The pipeline integrates five modules: IR-to-depth estimation with contour-guided attention and smoothing loss; IR-to-RGB generation via texture-conditioned injection and water-adaptive loss; detection and tracking using cross-modal fusion and behavior-constrained Kalman filtering; instance segmentation with depth-guided branches and deformation-adaptive loss; and volume estimation through trajectory–depth Transformer fusion with refraction correction. Trained on a curated dataset of 166 goldfish across 124 videos (8–16 fish/tank), the system achieves Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 0.85 cm3 and coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.961 for volume estimation, outperforming state-of-the-art methods by 19–41% while reducing hardware costs by 80%. This work advances precision aquaculture by providing robust, deployable tools for feed optimization and health monitoring, promoting environmental sustainability amid rising global seafood demand.