Autonomous Net Cage Maintenance
ZUX is a range of autonomous underwater robots built for aquaculture net cage operations — cage cleaning, waste collection, and net repair — engineered for zero-visibility, high-pressure environments.
ZUX is the robotics brand of Polarlys Innovation AS, a Norwegian technology company based in Trondheim. We develop autonomous underwater systems for aquaculture net cage maintenance.
Our robots are designed for the conditions that ground conventional equipment: turbid water, continuous net deformation under current load, deep operations, and the need to avoid stressing the fish population. ZUX systems operate without divers, autonomously, at depth.
Alongside the ZUX robotics programme, Polarlys acts as agent, distributor, and sales representative for marine sensors and oceanographic instruments across the Nordic aquaculture market.
All ZUX robots share a common modular platform — interchangeable tool modules, unified control architecture, and a single docking base per cage site. Currently in active development.
Autonomous removal of biofouling from net cage surfaces. Operates across the full depth profile without diver intervention, in turbid and low-visibility conditions.
A hovering robot working along the cage bottom, continuously collecting settled waste — uneaten feed, faeces, debris — with minimal disturbance to fish above.
An intervention robot for detecting and repairing damage to net cage panels — identifying holes, tears, and structural weak points, then applying emergency repair at depth.
Polarlys Innovation AS acts as agent, distributor, and sales representative for marine sensors and oceanographic instruments in the Nordic market.
We connect manufacturers with aquaculture operators and research institutions across Norway — covering water quality monitoring, current profiling, acoustic systems, and underwater positioning.
Manufacturers seeking Nordic representation, or operators with specific sensing requirements, are welcome to reach out.
DO, pH, temperature, salinity, turbidity — single-parameter probes and multiparameter sondes for continuous in-situ monitoring.
Acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCP) and single-point current meters for hydrodynamic characterisation of cage sites.
USBL, LBL, and DVL systems for subsea asset tracking and autonomous robot navigation within net cage structures.
Echosounders, fishfinders, and scanning sonar for biomass estimation, fish behaviour monitoring, and cage structural inspection.
Four core engineering challenges drive the ZUX development programme.
Net cage panels deform continuously under current load and fish movement. ZUX robots are designed to detect and adapt to these changes in real time, maintaining a consistent and safe working distance from the net surface throughout the operation.
Stable hovering over a moving, deformable surface in current-driven conditions is the central control challenge. ZUX attitude control synchronously manages vertical clearance, pitch, and roll — keeping the robot parallel to the net surface at all times.
One ZUX platform supports interchangeable tool modules — cleaning, waste collection, repair, inspection — so operators deploy fewer vehicles per cage site. Module exchange is designed for rapid cage-side turnaround without specialised tooling.
Robot operations are coordinated with feeding cycles and fish behaviour to avoid stress responses. ZUX scheduling systems select optimal operating windows and adapt robot behaviour in real time when fish shoals are detected near the work area.
We welcome enquiries from aquaculture operators, sensor manufacturers, research partners, and investors.