Teaching precision farming and entrepreneurship for European students: Sparkle online course

Within the framework of the European project named ‘SPARKLE’, an online course was created after studying educational needs on precision agriculture (PA), state of the art of technologies and a prospective study of the commercial sector. Five educational and research institutions, high-tech farms and enterprises specializing in technology transfer created the syllabus of the course and the platform contents. The course was designed to provide 30 h of student dedication, via online presentations, documents and videos for each topic. A free pilot course started in April 2020 and 385 students from Italy, Portugal, Greece & Spain enrolled. To trace performance and acquisition of competences, questionnaires were completed by students for each topic and a final overall test. Students’ opinions about the course were also registered using anonymous polls, and results evaluated, to be able to enhance the Sparkle course for subsequent editions. Students also took part in a business model competition, to solve real challenges proposed by farms, related to the use of these technologies

The Phase Space as a New Representation of the Dynamical Behaviour of Temperature and Enthalpy in a Reefer monitored with a Multidistributed Sensors Network

The study of temperature gradients in cold stores and containers is a critical issue in the food industry for the quality assurance of products during transport, as well as forminimizing losses. The objective of this work is to develop a new methodology of data analysis based on phase space graphs of temperature and enthalpy, collected by means of multidistributed, low cost and autonomous wireless sensors and loggers. A transoceanic refrigerated transport of lemons in a reefer container ship from Montevideo (Uruguay) to Cartagena (Spain) was monitored with a network of 39 semi-passive TurboTag RFID loggers and 13 i-button loggers. Transport included intermodal transit from transoceanic to short shipping vessels and a truck trip. Data analysis is carried out using qualitative phase diagrams computed on the basis of Takens?Ruelle reconstruction of attractors. Fruit stress is quantified in terms of the phase diagram area which characterizes the cyclic behaviour of temperature. Areas within the enthalpy phase diagram computed for the short sea shipping transport were 5 times higher than those computed for the long sea shipping, with coefficients of variation above 100% for both periods. This new methodology for data analysis highlights the significant heterogeneity of thermohygrometric conditions at different locations in the container

Evaluating Pig Ear Skin Temperature : Intercontinental Transport vs Housing Conditions

Variations in the skin temperature are often used as indicators of stress in animals. With advances in technology, it is now feasible to record high frequency livestock temperatures continuously for extended periods. In this study the objective was to analyse the response of pigs to different environmental conditions. The ear skin temperature of two batches of animals in intercontinental transport and housing was registered and characterized by the use of phase space diagram methodology. Eleven pigs were monitored during transport from a farm located in Reston (Canada), until their arrival at a farm in Montiel (Spain) during May 2016. After the itinerary by airplane and trucks separated with rest housing, pigs arrived to the farm after 94 hours. Fourteen finishers were monitored in one pen on a breeding farm in Villatobas (Spain) during one week in June 2017. To measure ear skin pig temperature, one logger with temperature sensor was glued to the RFID tag of each pig and placed on the inside half of the left ear. The areas and centroids of the phase space diagrams of ear skin temperatures were used to quantify the variability of the time temperature series. It was considered analysis of full times series and time series by periods (transport modality, transport transfers and day and night). The time series pattern for each individual was analysed independently in order to identify differences between animals of the same batch. The thermal variability between animals of the same batch was higher during transport than those identified in housed animals. The maximum and minimum areas for an animal during transport were 60-77% higher than the areas for housed animals, indicating more exposure to thermal stress during transport management

On-Ground Vineyard Reconstruction Using a LiDAR-Based Automated System

© 2020 by the authors.Crop 3D modeling allows site-specific management at different crop stages. In recent years, light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensors have been widely used for gathering information about plant architecture to extract biophysical parameters for decision-making programs. The study reconstructed vineyard crops using light detection and ranging (LiDAR) technology. Its accuracy and performance were assessed for vineyard crop characterization using distance measurements, aiming to obtain a 3D reconstruction. A LiDAR sensor was installed on-board a mobile platform equipped with an RTK-GNSS receiver for crop 2D scanning. The LiDAR system consisted of a 2D time-of-flight sensor, a gimbal connecting the device to the structure, and an RTK-GPS to record the sensor data position. The LiDAR sensor was facing downwards installed on-board an electric platform. It scans in planes perpendicular to the travel direction. Measurements of distance between the LiDAR and the vineyards had a high spatial resolution, providing high-density 3D point clouds. The 3D point cloud was obtained containing all the points where the laser beam impacted. The fusion of LiDAR impacts and the positions of each associated to the RTK-GPS allowed the creation of the 3D structure. Although point clouds were already filtered, discarding points out of the study area, the branch volume cannot be directly calculated, since it turns into a 3D solid cluster that encloses a volume. To obtain the 3D object surface, and therefore to be able to calculate the volume enclosed by this surface, a suitable alpha shape was generated as an outline that envelops the outer points of the point cloud. The 3D scenes were obtained during the winter season when only branches were present and defoliated. The models were used to extract information related to height and branch volume. These models might be used for automatic pruning or relating this parameter to evaluate the future yield at each location. The 3D map was correlated with ground truth, which was manually determined, pruning the remaining weight. The number of scans by LiDAR influenced the relationship with the actual biomass measurements and had a significant effect on the treatments. A positive linear fit was obtained for the comparison between actual dry biomass and LiDAR volume. The influence of individual treatments was of low significance. The results showed strong correlations with actual values of biomass and volume with R2 = 0.75, and when comparing LiDAR scans with weight, the R2 rose up to 0.85. The obtained values show that this LiDAR technique is also valid for branch reconstruction with great advantages over other types of non-contact ranging sensors, regarding a high sampling resolution and high sampling rates. Even narrow branches were properly detected, which demonstrates the accuracy of the system working on difficult scenarios such as defoliated crops.This research was funded by the RYC-2016-20355 agreement and by the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) (AGL2017-83325-C4-3-R). The research leading to these results has received funding from RoboCity2030-DIH-CM Madrid Robotics Digital Innovation Hub (“Robótica aplicada a la mejora de la calidadde vida de los ciudadanos. fase IV”; S2018/NMT-4331), funded by “Programas de Actividades I + D en la Comunidad de Madrid” and cofunded by Structural Funds of the EU.Peer reviewe

Cleansing data from an electronic feeding station to improve estimation of feed efficiency

Electronic feeding stations (EFS) are frequently used to automatically record feeding behaviour in pigs, but the resulting data often require cleansing. In this study, several filters were used to cleanse the data from an EFS on a commercial farm, spanning a period of 2147 days (2,709,600 records or visits, corresponding to 2748 pigs). The raw data of each animal was filtered based on three main parameters: fattening duration, feed ingested and live mass. Anomalies that affected EFS readings included aspects related to animal handling (e.g., changes of pen, deaths; affecting 26.1), maintenance failures (e.g., obstructions, feed mass calibration; affecting 4.4) and malfunctioning of the animal weighing scale (e.g., calibration, anomalies in the load cell; affecting 10.6). A detailed analysis of the mass curves of each animal helped identify and categorise three typical errors: 1) large fluctuations of animal mass over a short period of time (affecting 7.3); 2) poor calibration of the animal weighing scale (affecting 3.3); and 3) absence of data from the weighing scale (affecting 1.9). Once the raw data were filtered, feed efficiency was calculated, resulting in a mean value of 0.434, which is consistent with the literature. After filtering the first dataset, another dataset was used from the same farm to validate the results, with similar findings. Overall, the filtering methodology used helped to automate data analysis from EFS and improved the estimation of feeding efficiencies for individual animals

Pig ear skin temperature and feed efficiency: Using the phase space to estimate thermoregulatory effort

Mammalian skin temperature is often used as an indicator of health status but has also been used in animal production as a proxy measure for thermoregulatory effort or energy wastage. An animal with a higher skin temperature may also have a lower feed efficiency. With advances in technology it is now feasible to continuously record temperatures of livestock over protracted periods of time. In this study, the ear skin pig temperature was related to feed efficiency using phase space diagram methodology. Fourteen Landrace finishers (all male) housed in one pen over a week at relatively high temperatures (average temperature throughout the experiment 27 C) were supervised. The date, time and amount of feed consumed per individual animals was monitored via an electronic feeding station. The number of visits to the feeding station was used as an indicator of physical locomotor activity. Each animal was weighed at the beginning and at the end of the experiment to calculate their feed efficiency. The areas of the phase space diagrams of skin temperatures were used to quantify the variability of the time temperature series. Two areas in the phase space were correlated with feed efficiency (r ¼ 0.77) and physical locomotor activity (r ¼ 0.53). An index was developed that includes both areas, which increased the correlation between the variability of ear skin temperature and feed efficiency to r ¼ 0.85. This methodology could be used to help categorise pigs in terms of feed efficiency for rapid phenotyping

Generating emotions through cultural activities in museums

Museums, Emotions, Cultural activities,