HEMPANEL: A System for Producing Thermo-Acoustic Insulating Panels from Hemp Waste
December 18, 2024
DYNAMIC: Advanced Antibacterial Biomaterials to Enhance Bone Regeneration
December 20, 202419/12/2024
Since the early 21st century, the agricultural sector has faced significant challenges, such as the increasing demand for quality products and a lack of generational replacement. In this context, the agri-food sector is compelled to follow the example of other industries and prioritise digitalisation and automation to ensure sustainability and competitiveness.
In Catalonia, where 29% of the territory is dedicated to agriculture and 70% of managed water is used for irrigation, there is a pressing need to optimise water efficiency. Achieving this goal requires the integration of technology and knowledge to assess real water demands under environmental, energy, social, and economic sustainability criteria.
The introduction of lightweight mobile robots presents a promising solution—not only reducing emissions and energy consumption but also enabling more rigorous environmental impact assessments in a previously underexplored activity. In this context, the PREVENTBot project, led by the Center for Industrial Equipment Design (CDEI UPC) at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC), builds on the AgroMOBY project to further advance technical and digital transformation processes in agriculture.
The goal of PREVENTBot is to demonstrate the feasibility of autonomous systems for monitoring and measuring plant health and growth parameters in situ and in real time. The integrated system is proposed as a precision agriculture tool, aiming to save human resources, improve water and agricultural input management, and increase production efficiency. Its main objectives are:
- Demonstrating AgroMOBY’s capability to autonomously collect data in agricultural environments.
- Identifying plants and gathering data on water stress, health, and growth using combined thermal and NDVI sensors and cameras.
- Calibrating the obtained measurements through neural networks to provide water stress data for tomatoes and brassicas. Calibration will take place over one year at the Agròpolis UPC facilities in Viladecans to account for varying climatic and light conditions.
- Linking topographical navigation data with plant data to create a water stress, health, and growth map, enabling an overall crop assessment and identification of plants with anomalies.
The proposal is based on a UPC-developed technology, MOBY, validated in the indoor logistics market via the spin-off Steering Machines. PREVENTBot will use the AgroMOBY platform, an all-terrain variant of MOBY technology, incorporating hardware and software navigation systems (currently in the testing phase). The platform will integrate the mentioned sensors and data processing algorithms to monitor key crop parameters.
Budget and Funding
The project is funded through the call for Grants for Demonstration Activities in Knowledge Transfer under the Strategic Plan for the CAP 2023-2027, by the Department of Climate Action, Food, and Rural Agenda of the Generalitat de Catalunya. PREVENTBot has a total budget of €49,965.33 and a duration of 28 months (February 2024–June 2026).
Action under the PAC 2023-2027 Strategic Plan co-funded by:
Vols saber més?
Projectes Relacionats
- A research team from the Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial (IRI, CSIC-UPC), together with the Centre de Disseny d'Equips Industrials (CDEI) of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC), are participating in the national CASANDRA project to develop a digital manufacturing solution that will make it possible to establish a bidirectional data flow for continuous digital integration throughout the supply chain across the product life cycle. This integration will be achieved through digital twins and data-based models that are continuously updated thanks to distributed monitoring and control tools.
- The Materials Interfaces and Colloid Engineering group (INTERCOLL) at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC), in collaboration with the Life Cycle Thinking group at the University of the Basque Country (EHU), are taking part in the BIOCHOLESTEROID project to develop new bio-based smart materials with optical response for advanced applications.
- The research groups Structural and Materials Technology (ATEM) and the Construction Engineering (EC) at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC) are working on the RE-STEEL project, which aims to develop an efficient methodology for assessing the rehabilitation of existing steel structures.
- The AgroTech research group at UPC, in collaboration with its spin-off Ugiat Technologies, has developed uPlayer, a new multimedia player concept that enables more intuitive video navigation and viewing, intelligently enhancing the user experience, especially on YouTube and other platforms, by integrating as a plugin or advanced player.
