PRIMA: AI-based cross-modality farming robot for pesticide-free agriculture – German university seeks farming companies from Israel and / or Turkey to complete the consortium

Short summary A German university seeks partners from Israel and/or Turkey to complete the consortium for a project for the next call Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area (PRIMA). The objective is to use field robots to avoid the use of herbicides and in the long run reduce the use of insecticides. The partners should join the research consortium and have farmland where solutions can be implemented.

Full description Plant protection products are used extensively in agriculture to protect crops from weeds and pests. However, they contaminate the environment and endanger biodiversity and groundwater. In addition, their residues pollute agricultural products and thus food. Environmental protection and the pursuit of residue-free food have drastically tightened the conditions for the use of pesticides in the EU. A German Dutch consortium led by a German university seeks partners for a project for the call Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area (PRIMA). The project aims to use field robots to avoid the use of herbicides. This will then be extended to pest prediction so that the use of insecticides is also at least reduced. In addition, early plant disease detection will be addressed as well. Distinguishing between weeds and crops in the course of mechanical weeding by field robots as well as pest prediction and plant disease detection will be enabled by AI with information from the aerial and robotic imagery as well as the large-scale satellite data. Due to the high reflectance of leaf pigments in the near infrared (NIR) range, the infrared image component is necessary in addition to the RGB ones. To avoid overexposure, e.g. caused by the contre-jour shot due to the rising sun in the morning, the high dynamic range (HDR) imaging is necessary. The HDR images will be captured by the single-chip CMSO image sensor with dynamic range of more than 160 dB. The images will be specially pre-processed. The project builds on the existing technology and the results can be used not only in agriculture but also in other areas. The present consortium consists of the German university who can coordinate the project and undertake AI research, a German institute for microelectronics for the sensor, a German company specialised in robots and a Dutch company that will monitor the health of the crops with high resolution satellite imagery. Farms or companies with farmland are sought from Israel and / or Turkey to complete the consortium. Call: PRIMA (Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area) to be announced in December 2022 Deadline for Call: Probably end of March each year.

Contact / source: NEXT EEN Widgets (europa.eu)