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    E! 13295 INSAC-AGRIS
    PN-III-P3-3.5-EUK-2019-0232,
    Eureka Traditional
    36 month, 03.12.2020 – 30.11.2023
    Integrated System for Automatized Control of Experimental Crops through Aerial/Ground Remote Sensing for Precision Farming

    The overall objective of the project is to build an integrated autonomous/ semi-autonomous system with a service capable of collecting, correlating land, plant and aerial data acquisition systems and anticipating the properties of crops from aerially taken images. The forecasted data will be able to trigger the micro differentiated or corrective application of additives/inputs or irrigation/micro-irrigation for crops in order to achieve a precision agricultural system to achieve an optimized harvesting yield. In addition, preliminary investigations will also be carried out during the project for the analysis of the presence and pest control by means of vibration sensors.

    The proposed integrated system will enable farmers to better supervise plants. Thus, INSAC-AGRIS will be a system capable of analyzing plant characteristics, plant population, level of taming, sole health, growth problems, present diseases or pests. Adding aerial images and ground data to the database, analyzing soil and plants, and adjusting accordingly to the collected climate data, will create the basis of the prediction system only from aerial data. Also, using a multi-spectral chamber, several vegetation indices (for example, NDVI, SAVI, etc.) and other plant characteristics can be determined, complementing the information necessary for the construction of prediction algorithms.

    The pilot phase begins in Romania and Hungary over a period of 3 years, using experimental crops of wheat, rapeseed, green peas, maize, standard sunflower, sunflower with high oleic degree (high stearic), the experimental plots being designed to use a differentiated application area of inputs, together with the control test area. All these crops are particularly representative of Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region (Ukraine, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Serbia, etc.), but they are also found in the rest of the European Union’s agriculture, so that the use and scalability of the integrated system for further use is clear and proven.

    As a methodology, the following general steps were considered throughout the entire project, INSAC-AGRIS, related to crop management and the analysis of the physical-chemical characteristics of crops:

    1. preliminary acquisition of aerial images;
    2. elaboration of orthophoto-plan maps;
    3. drawing up the sampling plan for soil samples;
    4. elaboration of the typology and network of soil sensors;
    5. creating a GIS system, based on the parameters recorded in the Database;
    6. development of algorithm/software for data correlation;
    7. drawing up a map for the variable distribution of inputs.

    Our aim is to provide useful knowledge to all EU farmers and to provide them with new tools for precision farming. It is necessary to change the attitude of farmers towards precision agriculture, both at national and international level. In today’s practice, most farmers decide how to grow a particular area based on relatively little data (soil analysis, field inspections and weather monitoring).