AI and robotics in agri-food: the present and the future

AI and robotics in agri-food: the present and the future

Trends in agri-food robotics:

Four years from now

Jesús Pablo González | April 14th, 2021

Robotics and Automation Unit

Content• Overview of Eurecat

• Key facts in agriculture

• Example of agrifood projects at Eurecat

• Our vision of What’s next?


Trends in agri-food robotics: Four years from now

Together with companies, we create

and/or improve products, services and processes,

from coming up with an idea to industrializing it.

Turnover51,3M

Business

clients1.700

Innovation with an impactWe promote business competitiveness and the wellbeing

of society through applied research and innovation

3

2o

RTO in

Spain

We strengthen our innovative capacity on an

international level by participating in Digital

Innovation Hubs and Open Innovation Test Beds.

50%

of our activity is

with

SME

+650professionals

22%PhD

H2020 Projects

under way+ 60

+ 200 Big R&D&I

consortium

projects

H2020 Projects

led+ 24

New H2020

projects

approved

+ 19



• Vision guided robot

• Planning and control

• Grasping

• 3D SLAM

• Specialized path planning

• Human understanding and

cooperation

Dexterous Manipulation Service Robots

• Full Robot Autonomy

• 3D reconstruction

• Segmentation and object

tracking

Field Robots

• Robot learning

• Semantic robotics

• Task Planning and

reasoning

• Affective interaction

Cognitive Robotics

Recent EU projects

Robotics Unit background

Sectors:

•Manufacturing

•Quality Inspection

•Hybrid and flexible production

Sectors:

• Smart Logistics,

•Assistive robotics

•Healthcare

•CoWorkers

Sectors:

• Infrastructure inspection

•Agriculture and Environment

•Construction

• Security

Sectors:

•Agriculture,

•Construction

• Infrastructure inspection

Evolution employment in the agricultural sector



Expected agricultural machinery evolution

CAGR +8%CAGR +40%

As example, car industry is expected to growth at CAGR 5-6% 2020-2025

GA No. 825395

AgROBOfood DIH network

GA No. 825395

will stimulate implementation of high tech robotic

concepts for the agri-food sector;

will demonstrate their applicability under practical

circumstances.

Aiming at establishing and expanding a pan-European

network of Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs) that:

GA No. 825395GA No. 825395

Initial Innovation Experiments

Competence Centers

GA No. 825395GA No. 825395

1st Open Call: Innovation Experiments granted

Competence Centers

Agrobofood experimentCross-border collaboration

European project for the creation and promotion of a global

network of DIH (Digital Innovation Hubs) in robotics for agriculture

Innovation Experiment: Vineyard monitoring by robots

Automatic analysis of the maturity of the vineyard analyzing multi-spectral

images captured in the field together with satellite and meteorological data.

Drone-based agrifood projectsCollaboration with Regional Authorities and Japan

Japanese forests

monitoringCollaboration with Japan

Detection of golden

apple snail (Pomacea

canaliculata) in Ebro Delta

New large scale pilots projectStarted in Jan-2021

Robots for protecting crops

Use existing standards: 3-point hitch, ISOBUS, Tractors,

Implements, FMIS/ERP

Improving SoA: Robust autonomous navigation, fault detection and

graceful termination, safety, configurability, perform complete task

Non-technical aims: Socio-economic impact understood, workers

trained in robotics, insurance and financing available, suitable

business models, ethical questions answered, implications of

regulations are clear

Robotti (AgroIntelli) Ceol (AGreenCulture) Retrofitted tractor

New large scale pilots projectStarted in Jan-2021

New EGNSS-based agrifood robotics projectStarted in Jan-2021

Commom approaches for spraying have more than of 80% of losses

Cost effective robots for smart

precision spraying

Technical aims:

- Autonomous navigation and localization with EGNSS

- Novel Sprayer with VRT and novel sensors (fed by Copernicus data)

- Safety

- Modularity, Multifunctionality

Emblematic pictures of steep slope vineyards State of the art of sparying machinery

Synergies with roboticsTechnology cross-fertilization and hybridation

IoE-Crops: Internet of extensive Crops

Connect all systems and cloud services involved in extensive crop growing, making the most of

available and needed resources, increasing farms productivity

Interacciona: Smart quality traceabilityData acquisition from wine bottles trough smarts batteryless labels with sensing capabilities connected with NFC.

Smartphones equipped with user friendly app to obtain data from labels and send to cloud platform for further data

analytics.

VITIGEOSS: Vineyard Innovative Tool based on the InteGration of Earth Observation Services and

in-field Sensors

Data acquisition from in-field sensors (IoT sensors, weather stations, Cameras, Drones)

combined with satellite data and weather, phenology and crop status forecasting models for

the improved diseases management on vineyards and optimization of resources for a

sustainable agriculture



What’s next?

Cognitive RoboticsResearch priority and Flagship project at

Eurecat

Technology combinationIoT, Cloud, 5G, Cybersecurity, Big Data Analytics,

Mobile technologies, AR/VR…

Thank youJesús Pablo González

[email protected]

@jpgovi

mailto:[email protected]

Documents

AI and robotics in agri-food: the present and the future