Smart farming is more than a buzz word. By 2050, the global population will have grown by 2 billion to a total of 9.7 billion, according to the United Nations. Increasing agricultural productivity and sustainable food production is critical to provide this population with food. Smart farming achieved through Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies can create higher precision agriculture to help meet this demand.
The €8 million project 'IntellIoT', funded by the European Commission, will champion intelligent, autonomous agricultural solutions by executing semi-autonomous IoT applications for AI-enabled systems. TTControl is leading the agricultural use case of the project, which focuses on semi-autonomous behavior of farming vehicles and the tactile human-machine interaction.
The expected findings on smart farming will support sustainable, more efficient and more productive agriculture in the future: “Highly autonomous farming machinery will enable a more efficient and sustainable way of working and contribute to securing the global food supply,” says Manfred Prammer, Managing Director of TTControl. “We are happy to advance this project with sophisticated TTControl technologies to take the next step towards smart farming.”
At the core of the agricultural project is the development of a framework for an intelligent IoT environment in agriculture. This will be based around the prototype of an electrically operated tractor. The project consortium will investigate the integration of computation, communication and interaction technologies into this platform to allow semiautonomous operation.
TTControl will provide electronic controller and communication technology for the electronic architecture and the human-machine interaction. The tractor will be further equipped with multiple cameras to create a 360-degree view, allowing the operator to acquire a complete virtual image of the area surrounding the vehicle. This can be facilitated with smart glasses, for example. Additionally, 5G communication networks will be investigated for the human-machine interaction, to establish remote navigation of the farming vehicle. Test scenarios will include trustworthy semiautonomous operation of the e-tractor and secure human-machine interaction in case of unexpected situations.
As the leader of the agriculture use case, TTControl will investigate the use of high-end control units for the semi-autonomous control of agricultural vehicles and the functionality to exchange information between the vehicles and the human operator in a secure and reliable manner. TTControl will test and evaluate the developments within the use case scenarios and will lead the tasks of use case specification and open call definition and the exploitation and impact building activities.
This project has received funding from the European Community’s H2020 program under grant agreement no. 957218.
For more information, please see below.
TTControl press release: https://www.ttcontrol.com/press/ttcontrol-leads-agricultural-use-cases-on-eu-iot-project
Eurean commission: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/957218/de
