Security Architecture for Swarms of Autonomous Vehicles in Smart Farming

Nowadays, autonomous vehicles are incorporated into farms to facilitate manual labour. Being connected vehicles, as IoT systems, they are susceptible to cyber security attacks that try to cause damage to hardware, software or even living beings. Therefore, it is important to provide sufficient security mechanisms to protect both the communications and the data, mitigating any possible risk or harm to farmers, livestock or crops. Technology providers are aware of the importance of ensuring security, and more and more secure solutions can be found on the market today. However, generally, these particular solutions are not sufficient when they are part of complex hybrid systems, since there is no single global solution proposal. In addition, as the number of technologies and protocols used increases, the number of security threats also increases. This article presents a cyber-security architecture proposal for swarms of heterogeneous vehicles in smart farming, which covers all of the aspects recommended by the ISO 7798-2 specification in terms of security. As a result of this analysis, a detailed summary of the possible solutions and available technologies for each of the communication channels of the target system as well as some recommendations are presented.ECSEL JU (H2020–EU.2.1.1.7.–ECSEL RIA) and the Spanish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformatio

The AFarCloud ECSEL Project

Farming is facing many economic challenges in terms of productivity and cost-effectiveness. Labor shortage partly due to depopulation of rural areas, especially in Europe, is another challenge. Domain specific problems such as accurate identification and proper quantification of pathogens affecting plant and animal health are key factors for minimizing economical risks, and not risking human health. The ECSEL AFarCloud (Aggregate FARming in the CLOUD) project will provide a distributed platform for autonomous farming that will allow the integration and cooperation of agriculture Cyber Physical Systems in real-time in order to increase efficiency, productivity, animal health, food quality and reduce farm labour costs. This platform will be integrated with farm management software and will support monitoring and decision-making solutions based on big data and real-time data mining techniques.The AFarCloud project is funded from the ECSEL Joint Undertaking under grant agreement n° 783221, and from National funding

Aggregate Farming in the Cloud: The AFarCloud ECSEL project

Farming is facing many economic challenges in terms of productivity and cost-effectiveness. Labor shortage partly due to depopulation of rural areas, especially in Europe, is another challenge. Domain specific problems such as accurate monitoring of soil and crop properties and animal health are key factors for minimizing economical risks, and not risking human health. The ECSEL AFarCloud (Aggregate Farming in the Cloud) project will provide a distributed platform for autonomous farming that will allow the integration and cooperation of agriculture Cyber Physical Systems in real-time in order to increase efficiency, productivity, animal health, food quality and reduce farm labor costs. Moreover, such a platform can be integrated with farm management software to support monitoring and decision-making solutions based on big data and real-time data mining techniques.publishedVersio

A practical approach to cross-agri-domain interoperability and integration

In this paper we describe the process for making sensors and IoT devices interoperable with existing agri-solutions, and to federate data and services between two agricultural smart platforms, more precisely the AFarCloud and DEMETER solutions. This approach is in line with EU data-driven strategy and GAIA-X’s federation strategy. Finally, we present the use case where this process has been tested and validated, i.e. Kotipelto farm, a dairy farm located in Ylivieska (Finland).European Commission H2020, 857202, DEMETE