The acceleration of Digital Agriculture is evident through the increased adoption of digital technologies on farms including smart machines, sensors and cloud computing. In this paper we present the preliminary results of the research project funded by Università Politecnica delle Marche in 2018 “PFRLab: Setting of a precision farming robotic laboratory for cropping system sustainability and food safety and security”, which is still underway. In this context, as first result, an interdepartmental Research and Services Center called “Smart Farming” has been set up with the aim to strengthen multidisciplinary collaborations in the fields of Agriculture and Forestry, Geomatics, ICT and Robotics. Regarding field activities the SPAD 502 as well as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) provide a good estimate of the Chlorophylla+b content in durum wheat leaves so can be used to predict in a quickly and non-destructively way, the crop greenness status and to identify any nutritional deficiencies in real time. Future research activities are certainly needed to fully explore the potentialities of conservation agriculture and precision farming, and to drive the transition process from conventional agriculture to modern conservation agriculture and precision farming techniques. In-depth studies are planned on the combined effect of nitrogen fertilization and soil management on the main production variables of durum wheat in order to evaluate whether specific tools for precision agriculture applications can find significant diffusion even in Mediterranean cereal based cropping systems.

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Abstract:The impressive hydraulic system built by the Assyrian King Sennacherib is composed by different archaeological areas, displaced along the Land of Nineveh, in Iraqi Kurdistan. The extensive project we are working on has the aim of mapping and geo-referencing any kind of documentation in order to design an archaeological-environmental park able to preserve and enhance the archaeological complex. Unfortunately, the area is failing a topographic documentation and the available cartography is not sufficient for planning and documentation purposes. The research work presented in these pages moves towards this direction, by exploiting Pleiadés Very High Resolution (VHR) images (in both nadir and stereo configuration) for an accurate mapping of the site. In more depth, Pleiadés nadir VHR images have been used to perform a pansharpening procedure used to enhance the visual interpretation of the study area, whilst stereo-pair have been processed to produce the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the study area. Statistical evaluations show the high accuracy of the processing and the reliability of the outputs as well. The integration of different products, at different Levels of Detail within a unique GIS environment, besides protecting, preserving and enhancing the water system of Sennacherib's, paves the way to allow the Kurdistan Regional Government to present a proposal for the admission of the archaeological complex in the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List (WHTL).

The huge potential of 3D digital acquisition techniques for the documentation of archaeological sites, as well as the related findings, is almost well established. In spite of the variety of available techniques, a sole documentation pipeline cannot be defined a priori because of the diversity of archaeological settings. Stratigraphic archaeological excavations, for example, require a systematic, quick and low cost 3D single-surface documentation because the nature of stratigraphic archaeology compels providing documentary evidence of any excavation phase. Only within a destructive process each single excavation cannot be identified, documented and interpreted and this implies the necessity of a re- examination of the work on field. In this context, this paper describes the methodology, carried out during the last years, to 3D document the Early Neolithic site of Portonovo (Ancona, Italy) and, in particular, its latest step consisting in a photogrammetric aerial survey by means of UAV platform. It completes the previous research delivered in the same site by means of terrestrial laser scanning and close range techniques and sets out different options for further reflection in terms of site coverage, resolution and campaign cost. With the support of a topographic network and a unique reference system, the full documentation of the site is managed in order to detail each excavation phase; besides, the final output proves how the 3D digital methodology can be completely integrated with reasonable costs during the excavation and used to interpret the archaeological context. Further contribution of this work is the comparison between several acquisition techniques (i.e. terrestrial and aerial), which could be useful as decision support system for different archaeological scenarios. The main objectives of the comparison are: i) the evaluation of 3D mapping accuracy from different data sources, ii) the definition of a standard pipeline for different archaeological needs and iii) the provision of different level of detail according to the user needs.

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