The Spanish research center Tekniker, a member of the Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), is taking part in the European GreenPatrol project, which is focused on the development of an autonomous mobile robot "capable of detecting pests in the plants of a greenhouse in its earliest stages, identifying them and applying the most appropriate chemical treatment based on a strategy defined by experts."
The mobile robot, still in the prototype phase, will be tested in an agricultural greenhouse in the Basque town of Lezama during the first half of this year. The goal is for the project "to end in July this year with a prototype ready for commercial application, as a previous step to its marketing."
As a technology partner in the European GreenPatrol project, Tekniker has been responsible for the development of the inspection system based on Deep Learning technology, which recognizes pests and allows the robot to decide and apply the most appropriate chemical treatment.
In addition, the technology center has integrated the robotic arm into the mobile platform with which the plants are handled for inspection, taking into account the safety of people and changing environmental conditions.
The center has developed artificial intelligence technologies for the detection of pests in tomato plants, the crop's inspection using the robot arm and the implementation of the IPM (Integrated Pest Management) strategy that allows the system to decide which plants in the greenhouse are to be analyzed. It has also been responsible for the mobile platform's hardware for satellite navigation and for the cloud software architecture allowing it to plan trajectories and avoid obstacles.
The GreenPatrol consortium is made up of six partners at European level: two technology centers, one of which is Tekniker; a university, and three industrial companies. The project has been funded with 2.4 million Euro by the European GNSS Agency under the Horizon 2020 program of the European Union and will end on July 30, 2020.
Source: Europa Press / lavanguardia.com