Intelligent Agriculture and Water Management
In the real-world laboratory for intelligent land and water management, we are researching and testing solutions for a resilient and sustainable food and nutrition supply in the context of climate change, environmental pollution and resource scarcity. The question of concepts for feeding the growing global population while at the same time exacerbating the climatic conditions on earth is one of the major challenges of the 21st century. Our research focuses on the use and design of (partially) automated systems for monitoring, controlling and planning plant cultivation as well as the boundary conditions and environmental conditions.
Motivation
The catastrophic worsening of climate change, severe pollution and the scarcity of non-renewable resources are forcing society to abandon the inefficient and destructive linear economy (LE) it has relied on until now. A circular economy (CE) replaces our LE with circular, more sustainable forms of consumption and production and decouples economic growth from the consumption of natural resources. The circular economy aims to conserve natural resources and minimize the emission of pollutants. In the circular economy, products and services are designed and constructed in such a way that they can be returned to the economic and material cycle at any time. Related concepts, such as the circular society, go beyond the pure economic cycle and recirculate and redistribute wealth, knowledge, technology and power throughout society.
Research field of the real laboratory
The research fields of the Smart Agriculture and Water Management Real-World Laboratory can be divided into the two sub-areas that give it its name. The research fields of the two areas focus on:
...in the field of agriculture on:
- Forecasting systems for predicting floods
- Monitoring and the recyclability of water
...in the field of water management:
- Automated agricultural production and growth optimization
- Urban farming
In order to address these research areas, various technologies are being developed and used in the real-world laboratory. These include:
...in the field of agriculture:
- Data-driven systems for monitoring the rearing process
- Artificial intelligence for the evaluation of rearing progress and disease detection
- Automated systems for planting and rearing crops using Cartesian robots and incubation systems
...in the field of water management:
- Machine learning to predict water levels and detect hazards at an early stage
- Ensuring the integrity of water control systems using automated systems
- Improving the water usage cycle through sensor-based optimization and control
