AGRARSENSE project develops new technology solutions to increase productivity in agriculture and forestry

Lapland University of Applied Sciences joins a new 3-year project that takes agricultural and forestry related productivity to the next level. The consortium will develop European state-of-the-art technologies in electronic components and systems for future needs, building European resilience in critical sectors and strongly contribute to sustainability targets and climate change mitigation.

Adequate food and its security are a global challenge, impacted by rapidly compounding effects of climate change, supply chains, human labour shortages, political and military aggression to name a few. We need technology that enables transparent, sustainable, and improved productivity in agriculture and forestry.

Focus on food security, improved productivity of agriculture and forestry

The AGRARSENSE project, launched in January 2023, responds to these needs by developing technologies for seven different use cases that represent seven different angles on today’s European agriculture and forestry: greenhouses, vertical farming, precision viticulture, agriculture robotics, forestry machinery and optimal soil management and fertilization as well as agriculture related water management. The electronics components and systems related technology R&D includes e.g., plant, soil, and water sensors and related integration, as well as software, connectivity, and data management solutions. Safety, security, and reliability R&D as well as autonomous movement and robotics platforms pave the way to full commercial utilization of the project outcomes.

The AGRARSENSE project, led by Komatsu Forest AB, brings together 52 partners from 15 European countries with an overall budget of 51 million euros. The project consortium consists of 24 small and mid-sized enterprises, 13 large enterprises, and 15 research and technology organizations. It is co-financed via the Key Digital Technologies Joint Undertaking of the Horizon Europe, national funding agencies of the participating countries, and the consortium partners.

AGRARSENSE Kick-off at Fraunhofer IZM in Berlin in January 2023

Virtual environments create new possibilities in forestry

The focus of Lapland UAS in the AGRARSENSE project is on developing virtual environments. By bringing together forestry experts and the FrostBit Software Lab, Lapland UAS will develop a digital twin of a real forest from operational and easily available forest, nature, and GIS data.

“Creating a real-time simulation with virtual sensors of forest machines, the goal is to teach forest machine AI to move autonomously in logging sites,” says Anne Saloniemi, Project Manager at Lapland UAS. “The current AI training methods that are available for autonomous forest machine AI are not sufficient and therefore new methods have to be developed.”

The AIFor project, which is related to the AGRARSENSE project, aims to develop these new methods and a virtual environment for autonomous forest machine AI training. The AIFor-project is implemented by Lapland UAS and it’s co-financed by Business Finland.

More information:

Anne Saloniemi, Project Manager, Lapland UAS

Email: anne.saloniemi@lapinamk.fi

https://www.agrarsense.eu/

About AGRARSENSE 

AGRARSENSE is an extensive 3-year project with a total of 52 partners from 15 European countries and an overall budget of 51 M€. It is co-financed via the Key Digital Technologies Joint Undertaking of the Horizon Europe, national funding agencies of the participating countries, and the consortium partners. The project consortium consists of 24 small and mid-sized enterprises, 13 large enterprises and 15 research and technology organisations. Geographically, the consortium covers Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western Europe: Finland, Sweden, Norway, Latvia, Ireland, The Netherlands, France, Germany, Poland, Austria, Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and Turkey. The consortium covers the full value chain including sensors and components, packaging and hardware integration, software, algorithm, connectivity developments and system aspects, as well as testing, reliability, cyber security, and user safety elements. The project consortium and proposal were built with the help of Spinverse. 

About KDT JU

The Key Digital Technologies Joint Undertaking – is a Public-Private Partnership for research, development, and innovation – that funds projects for assuring world-class expertise in these key enabling technologies, essential for Europe's competitive leadership in the era of the digital economy. Focusing on electronic components and systems that underpin all major economic sectors, KDT JU launches annual Calls for Proposals for research, development, and innovation projects. Through the KDT JU, European industry, SMEs and Research and Technology Organisations (RTOs) are supported and co-financed by the KDT Participating States and the

European Union. https://www.kdt-ju.europa.eu/

This project has received funding from the KDT Joint Undertaking (JU) under Grant Agreement No. 101095835. The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and Sweden, Spain, France, Ireland, Austria, the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Germany, Norway, Finland, Latvia, Czechia, Türkiye.