2019
2022
Agriculture requires innovations to increase production yields in terms of quantity and quality, but also to increase efficiency in resource management. It is necessary to reduce environmental impact and production costs, in a context of climate change and market globalization. Precision farming has been gaining a crucial role in helping farmers run their businesses in a way that is productive and sustainable. Although the Central European area is the core of EU manufacturing, precision farming has not been high in the agenda and focus of smart specialization in our regions.
The project Transfarm 4.0 (2019–2022) aimed at increasing the direct participation of farmers in the precision farming sector and boosting the competitiveness of the European precision farming advanced manufacturing supply chains.
Transfarm 4.0 scouted new demand-driven precision farming solutions to meet the needs of the farmers. Within the project, companies, clusters, research institutions and farmers worked together to bring new technological solutions to the market.
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PILOT ACTION 1 - ISOBUS APPLICATION - SEEDBED CONTROL was carried out to evaluate how precision farming systems influence the farming methods. During the action some communication challenges between the manufacturers and the customers were identified. 2 mini-projects, which focused on a transnational approach to conceiving new smart solutions, were carried out. The goal was to evaluate if the seedbed control was able to influence the roughness. The first parameter was the roughness, measured per variant. At this evaluation, it was possible to confirm that the seedbed-control variant could till the soil smoother than the average of the others. However, the results also showed that the controlled seedbed preparation could not develop significantly better plant emergence. The analysis of the variance showed that the Seedbed Control could not produce a significantly higher yield.
PILOT ACTION 2 - REMOTE AND PROXIMAL SENSING was is to implement an affordable precision spraying system (PSS) on a commercial orchard mist blower able to detect the canopy and spray according to its presence. The aim of the PSS precision spraying system, developed within Transfarm 4.0, was to be used for most agricultural perennial crops present in Central Europe. Moreover, it intends to be a solution not only for big farms but aims to satisfy the needs of small and medium farms with limited competencies and budgets for new investments. In this way, the PPS was tested on a specific mist blower, but with some minor adjustments, it can be installed on most mist blowers already present on the farms regardless of the make. The PSS used two LiDAR sensors and pulses with modulation (PWM) supported valves. The LiDAR sensors detected the mist blower position and estimated the presence of the tree’s canopy. The system could avoid treatment wasted because it sprayed only in the presence of a canopy and closed the nozzles when there was a gap in the vegetation hedge. The system was built as a plug-and-play tool that was easy to use for farmers with low technology skills.
PILOT ACTION 3 - SENSOR DATA ACQUISITION FOR PRECISION VITIVULTURE IN A FIWARE DATA LAKE aimed to implement a smart data acquisition system in agriculture, allowing farmers to monitor and analyse relevant parameters and act accordingly. Thus, this pilot action belonged to the innovation domain of “big and smart data management”.
FIWARE, an open-source platform supported by the European Commission as part of the Digital Agenda 2020 (https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/fiware-european-success-story), was created to enable smart data acquisition. Creating a FIWARE data acquisition system, would allow monitoring of several parameters relevant to farmers. The sensor data were acquired at several wireless sensor nodes and sent to the FIWARE Context Broker, where they were stored and analysed. Since FIWARE is an open-source platform, no license costs occurred. By applying the FIWARE data acquisition system, different irrigation systems in this pilot action were monitored and evaluated, considering canopy microclimate and plant physiological status. Based on the big data provided by the network, an efficient irrigation plan specific to the terroir, cultivar and cultivation practices was established.
Transfarm 4.0's family is made up of 10 partners from 5 central European countries.
pilot action 3
LCM has equipped a vineyard in Tata, Hungary, with a sensor and data logging system. This system is measuring more than 100 vegetation and climate-related parameters. The data resulting from the 32 sensors are acquired via the FIWARE-plattform and sent to a FIWARE data lake. Learn more
meeting the expert
This time we talked with Patrick Crehan, Director of Crehan, Kusano & Associates (CKA). He argues for the need to strategically think about the ways to address the challenges posed by the data revolution in agriculture. You can find the entire interview on our YouTube channel!
pilot action 2
Together with CREA and AE-ROBO.NET, the University of Maribor is developing an advanced lidar system for detecting the properties of the canopy. The sensor system readings allow to reduce the consumption of plant protection products. Watch the video and discover our YouTube channel!
pilot action 3
"Sensor data acquisition for precision viticulture in a Fiware data lake” is the Pilot Action 3 in Transfarm 4.0.
Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Linz Center of Mechatronics started the field trials to evaluate vineyard microclimate and plant physiology. View more...
30 march 2021
Transfarm 4.0 goes live with an online event dedicated to the innovation within agriculture, with the focus on the role of the Clusters in the innovation actions, current R&D development activities and about transfer of the newest research results into the farming technologies. Read more...
News
It feels good to be featured on one of the most popular Austrian newspapers.
Our Martin Scherhäufl (Linz Center of Mechatronics) focuses on the role of precision agriculture and its application in Europe in this article about Transfarm4.0 published by the Kronen Zeitung.
News
Transfarm 4.0 pays much attention to dissemination through different communication channels. The Twitter account and LinkedIn page are really active and help build an informed precision farming community. Now, a project leaflet has been prepared as a further channel of dissemination. It has been designed in English and then translated in the other five languages spoken within the consortium, i.e. German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish and Slovenian.
Partners
total budget (Mil.€)
erdf (mil.€)
countries
1. 4. 2019
30. 6. 2022