Sustainable agriculture using an intelligent mechatronic system

Abstract

The goal of the Project group created by U.P.M. in collaboration with Foreign Universities, Research Institutions and Companies is the development of an intelligent mechatronic system for the use of precision and sustainable agriculture. The project as a whole includes the following components: photographing and decoding of the soil surface; fertility determination and formation of the fertility map; generation of the controlling signal for mechatronic dosing device; intelligent dosing of fertilizers; simulation, prototype and testing; humanmachine interaction and training preparation.

Ad Hoc Network-Based Task Allocation With Resource-Aware Cost Generation for Multirobot Systems

“…In the mission, a team of robots with limited com-munication range negotiate with each other for task allocation and autonomously execute the tasks as fast as possible, as well as occasionally refill their resources in refill stations. Examples of such application areas are planetary exploration [10], automated warehouse management [11], [12], urban hygiene management [13], and agriculture automation [14]. One of the important issues for such domains is the consideration of the robots' finite expendable resources.…”

General review of intelligent agriculture development in China

“…IA is technically basically dependent on remote sensing technique, geographic information system, global positioning system (GPS), the IoT, big data analysis, cloud computing and the other up-to-date components and systems of information technologies such as artificial intelligence and human–machine interactions to realize intelligent sensing, automatic control and scientific decision making of the agricultural economic activities (Krutz, 1983; Culler et al , 2004; Sun et al , 2013; Cepeda et al , 2013; Chen, 2010). Integrating the previous discussions, we define that IA is a data resource and scientific management system, applying up-to-date information analysis and decision models based on information collection through varied types of sensors and information transmission of wireless equipment in various agricultural economic activities (Grau et al , 2009; Ge, 2017; Moskvins et al , 2008). IA can be applied in a broad variety of agricultural activities, including field planting, greenhouse, livestock and poultry breeding, aquaculture, storage of fruits, vegetables, and food, ensuring safety of agricultural products and monitoring agricultural environment.…”

“…Reflected from the English literature, IA have been discussed, explored, studied or applied in many other countries and regions of the world (Yang, 2014; Mertens et al , 2008; Kolhe et al , 2011a, b; Hendrawan and Murase, 2011; Olvera-Gonzalez et al , 2013; Yoo et al , 2007; Markom et al , 2009; Iliadis et al , 2010; Grau et al , 2009; Lynch et al , 2000; Hashimoto et al , 2001). To see whether there is extant experience of IA development to learn from other countries, we discuss the properties of IA development in Japan, India, the USA and other countries.…”

“…Examples include applying an electronic nose incorporating artificial neural networks in plant disease detection in South East Asia, applying an intelligent system with an extended fuzzy c-means clustering in forest fire management in Greece, and applying the data-based design of an intelligent control chart in monitoring egg quality in Belgium (Markom et al , 2009; Iliadis et al , 2010; Mertens et al , 2008). Moreover, international collaborations have been conducted in term of the research and development of IA technologies, taking the development of an intelligent mechatronic system among some European countries and the collaboration between scholars from Japan and Belgium in exploring the optimal control techniques of fruit-storage as two examples (Morimoto et al , 1997; Grau et al , 2009).…”

“…IA applies up-to-date information technologies, such as Internet of Things (IoT), big data, artificial intelligence and human–machine interactions, in varied agricultural activities and emerges as an important tendency, reforming the way of agricultural production globally (Sistler, 1987; Li, 2012; Ge, 2017). The development of IA is supposed to realize automation and sustainability owning to higher productivity, lower costs and enhanced ecosystem development with computer-aided agricultural production (Cepeda et al , 2013; Finkelstein and Hofmann, 1987; Grau et al , 2009; Nishina, 2015; Li, 2017).…”