The Agricultural Robots for Sustainable Agriculture of Tomorrow

28 September 2018
9 am – 4 pm

Gronchi Room
Regional Natural Park of Migliarino San Rossore Massaciuccoli

Referent: Manuela Giovannetti

Program

Scientific Organizational Committee

Enrico Giunta, Pisa (Italy), Alberto Pardossi (Italy), Manuela Giovannetti, Pisa (Italy), Giovanni Benelli, Pisa (Italy), Giovanni Maffei Cardellini, Pisa (Italy), Giacomo Lorenzini, Pisa, (Italy), Federico Martinelli, Palermo (Italy)

9.00 – 9.15
Institutional Greetings and Opening Interventions
Giovanni Maffei Cardellini, President of Regionale Natural Park of San Rossore, Massaciuccoli, Migliarino, Pisa (Italy)
Alberto Pardossi, Director Department of Agricultural, Food and Agri-environmental Sciences, University of Pisa (Italy)

Sessione I – Scientific research

Moderators: Alberto Pardossi and Federico Martinelli

9.15 – 9.45
Advances in robotics, infotronics and remote sensing technologies for the early and rapid diagnosis of diseases in crops
Qin Zhang, Washington, USA

9.45 – 10.15
Innovative mechatronic solutions for precision agriculture
Marco Vieri, Florence, Italy

10.15 – 10.45
Modern approaches to integration between functional genomics and practical knowledge of the African agricultural tradition
Mario Enrico Pè, Pisa, Italy

10.45 – 11.00
Presentation of the degree thesis in “Smart City and Green City”
Davide Nardini, Milan, Italy

11.00 – 11.30
Technology transfer of optical remote sensing from drone in agriculture: what has been done, what remains to be done
Enrico Borgogno Mondino, Torino, Italy

Sessione II – Agriculture, Animals and Robots

PAY ATTENTION: Find details and further information at the Stand at Stazione Leopolda

11.30 – 11.45
Animals and robots: challenges for biological sciences and technological innovation
Cesare Stefanini, Pisa, Italy

11.45 – 12.15
Animal-robot interactions and relevant examples
Donato Romano, Pisa, Italy
Giovanni Benelli, Pisa, Italy

12.30 – 12.45
Robots to discover the underwater world
Donato Romano, Pisa, Italy
Riccardo Pelliccia, Pisa, Italy

13.00 – 13.45 Light Lunch

Sessione III – Robotic Technologies

Moderators: Giacomo Lorenzini and Federico Martinelli

13.45 – 14.15
Demonstration to the public of recent robots to alleviate labor effort in viticulture
Christophe Millot, France

14.15 – 14.45
PEAD: autonomous hoeing of crops in sustainable agriculture by artificial intelligence
Anthony Gelibert, Carbon Bee Company, France

14.45 – 15.15
Tactile experiences – internet for wildlife control
Stefano Giordano, Natech srl, Italy

15.15 – 15.45
Conclusions and Final Discussion
Manuela Giovannetti, Pisa, Italy
Federico Martinelli, Palermo, Italy

Agriculture, Animals and Robots

Stand at the Stazione Leopolda

Referents for robots in exhibition:

Cesare Stefanini, Pisa, Italy
Donato Romano, Pisa, Italy

Mode of use for the public
from 28 to 30 september 2018, from 10 am to 7 pm

Exhibition, videos, blue e green light communication among a-mussels.

Stand members:

Donato Romano, Giovanni Benelli, Francesca Digiacomo, Abanti Afroz, Michael Tannous, Marco Miraglia, Godfried Jansen van Vuuren.

Robots:

Jumping mini robot: biological observations on jumping insects by means of a high-speed camera allowed to find that the legs configuration let map muscle-like force into a constant force at feet-ground interface, to redesign an artefact that can reproduce the dynamic characteristics of insect jumping.

Lampetra-like robot: biomimetic system inspired by the lamprey, an early vertebrate that locomotes using anguilliform swimming. The artefact possesses extra and proprioceptive sensory receptors, muscle-like actuation, distributed embedded control and a vision system. LAMPETRA Project (EU contract no 216100).

Jeff AUV: element of the robotic swarm of the Project CoCoRo. This artefact is endowed with several communication channels and sensors to navigate, collect information and achieve swarm coordination in underwater environments.

A-mussel: intelligent underwater probe that by sharing its intelligence with other elements of swarm can collect information concerning chemical and physical parameters in the Venice Lagoon. This robot is part of the robotic swarm of the Project subCULTron, representing the world largest multi-agent system in underwater environments.

A-fish: second class of robots of the subCULTron robotic swarm. They act as vectors of the information collected by “underwater communities” of A-mussels.

Furthermore, a dedicate section of the stand will show different robotic platforms used in entomological studies such as predator-prey interactions, parasitology, courtship, as well as behavioural asymmetries.

Brief synthesis of the project included in our stand:

The H2020 project subCULTron aims for achieving long-term autonomy in a learning, self-regulating, self-sustaining underwater society/culture of robots in a high-impact application area: Venice, Italy.

This heterogeneous system consists of three different agent types:

1) On the sea-ground, artificial mussels are the collective long-term memory of the system, allowing information to stay beyond the runtime of other agents, thus allowing to continue learning from previously learned states. These mussels monitor the natural habitat, including biological agents like algae, bacterial incrustation and fish.

2) On the water surface, artificial lily pads interface with the human society, delivering energy and information influx from ship traffic or satellite data.

3) Between those two layers, artificial fish move/monitor/explore the environment and exchange info with the mussels and lily pads. Artificial mussels are novel class of underwater agents.

subCULTron represents the world’s record for swarm-size in autonomous collective underwater robotics by almost one order of magnitude.

Our application field is a human- and animal-co-inhabited real-world environment of high impact: Venice canals and lagoon.

These robots will form sub-populations locally performing memetic or cultural learning algorithms on their specific local data. Thus, novel cultural evolution algorithms will promote sub-culture development, similar to the human society that does the same above the water level in parallel.

Faculty

Giovanni Maffei Cardellini, President of Regionale Natural Park of San Rossore, Massaciuccoli, Migliarino, Pisa (Italy)
Alberto Pardossi, Director Department of Agricultural, Food and Agri-environmental Sciences, University of Pisa (Italy)

Enrico Borgogno Mondino, Associate Professor, Department of Agricultural, Forestry and Food Sciences, University of Turin, Italy

Anthony Gelibert, Executive, Carbon Bee Company, France

Stefano Giordano, Associate Professor, Information Engineering, University of Pisa and Natech srl Expert, Italy

Manuela Giovannetti, Full Professor of Agricultural Microbiology, Department of Agricultural, Food and Agri-environmental Sciences, University of Pisa, Italy

Giacomo Lorenzini, Full Professor of Plant Pathology, Department of Agricultural, Food and Agri-environmental Sciences, University of Pisa, Italy

Federico Martinelli, Researcher in Agricultural Genetics, Department of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences, University of Palermo, Italy

Christophe Millot, Executive, Wall-Ye Company, France

Davide Nardini, Graduate, University of Milan, Italy

Mario Enrico Pè, Full Professor, Genetics, Institute of Life Sciences, Sant’Anna Scuola Superiore School, Pisa, Italy

Marco Vieri, Full Professor, Management of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Systems, University of Florence, Italy

Qin Zhang, Professor and Director “Center for Precision & Automated Agricultural Systems”, Washington State University

Cesare Stefanini, Full Professor, The BioRobotics Institute, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa.

Giovanni Benelli, postdoctoral research associate, Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Pisa.

Riccardo Pelliccia, postdoctoral research associate, The BioRobotics Institute, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa.

Donato Romano, Ph.D. student, The BioRobotics Institute, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa.

Francesca Digiacomo, Ph.D. student, The BioRobotics Institute, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa.

Abanti Afroz, Ph.D. student, The BioRobotics Institute, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa.

Michael Tannous, Ph.D. student, The BioRobotics Institute, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa.

Marco Miraglia, Ph.D. student, The BioRobotics Institute, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa.

Godfried Jansen van Vuuren, Ph.D. student, The BioRobotics Institute, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa.

Abstract

The UN estimates that the world’s human population will reach 9.7 billion in 2050. We therefore need a modern and technological agriculture that can keep up with the growing food demand. The need for food is growing more than the agricultural surface that must not grow to the detriment of natural areas and its biodiversity. Agricultural robots can make a major contribution to making agriculture more productive and sustainable from an environmental point of view. With the rapid development of agricultural science and technology, automation has become the main driving force for the modernization of agriculture. Applications of robotics and automation technology in agriculture include remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS), model recognition, product quality control, agricultural robots, controlled environment automation, techniques artificial intelligence (AI) and those from the Internet (“Internet-of-Things, IOT”).

These technologies contribute significantly to the development of precision agriculture. This modern agricultural activity consists in evaluating the variability of the different agronomic factors for their accurate and sustainable management. Scientific research in the field of robotics in agriculture is achieving results that were unexpected until recently. Agriculture is fast becoming an exciting high-tech industry, attracting new professionals, new companies and new investors. Technology is developing rapidly, not only by improving the production capacity of farmers, but also by advancing robotics and automation technology as we know it. Agricultural robots are increasing crop yields for farmers in various ways. From drones to autonomous tractors and crop robots, technology is used in creative and innovative applications. Agricultural robots do not replace the use of labor but automate slow, repetitive and tedious tasks for farmers, allowing them to focus more on improving overall production returns.

In this workshop will be shown some scientific and technological progress obtained by international research groups and technology companies. The public will be introduced in the fascinating field of agricultural robotics at the service of man and the environment.

The Agricultural Robots for Sustainable Agriculture of Tomorrow

Project Info

Project Description