Former aerospace engineer builds robot boats for Taiwan's aquaculture market
EZaquaculture says it has sold more than 98 unmanned feeding boats; startup-accelerator trials found they cut labor about 70%.
Hsu Hung-te (許宏德) grew up in a fish-farming family in Yunlin, in western Taiwan, and watched his father row a raft across the ponds to scatter feed. After working at aircraft maker Aerospace Industrial Development Corp. (AIDC, 漢翔航空), he built a boat to do the job instead.
His company, EZaquaculture (豐漁水產養殖), founded in 2023, is now on its fifth generation of unmanned boats. One version Hsu described in early 2025 was about 175 cm (about 5 feet 9 inches) long and weighed about 50 kg (110 pounds). Its main unit and feed box can be disassembled so a single person can carry it. A remote control holds the navigation and feeding controls, so older farmers can use it, and the boats can also follow satellite-navigated routes.
The payoff: feeding one jia (a traditional Taiwanese land unit of just under a hectare) of pond by hand took about 90 minutes, but with the boat it takes just 20 minutes, according to People News (民報). One person can now feed 10 jia a day. Field trials published by the food-and-agriculture startup accelerator 好食好事, which the company is in, found about 70% labor savings and about 10% higher earnings.
In its listing for the 2026 Taiwan Smart Agriweek trade show, the company said it had sold more than 98 boats and could build 50 per month.
Sources: 經濟日報 Economic Daily News [1], [2], 民報 People News, 工商時報 Commercial Times, Taiwan Smart Agriweek (exhibitor profile)
Editor: Ian Lamont
