The five participating teams of the 3rd Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge are now in the final phase of this year’s competition. This phase revolves around the real, remote, and autonomous growing of hydroponic lettuce production using artificial intelligence.
The winner of the 3rd edition of the Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge, which is organized by the Business Unit Greenhouse Horticulture and Flower Bulbs of Wageningen University & Research and sponsored by Tencent, will be announced on 1 July during the 1st International Autonomous Greenhouse event.
WUR started the Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge in 2018. After two editions of growing remotely cucumber and cherry tomato crops, at the beginning of 2021, the 3rd edition started with an online challenge and then a hackathon. Five international teams are currently growing lettuces from a distance using algorithms of artificial intelligence and computer vision algorithms to steer and monitor the greenhouse climate and crop decisions.
The teams consist of students and scientists from various IT-related disciplines and horticulture experts. A sixth, reference compartment is controlled by a team of WUR researchers. The teams have developed their own control and vision algorithms that have been tested during a successful try-out experiment in the early spring of 2022.
Having in mind the lessons learned from the validation experiment, time was given for refining the algorithms before the second and last experiment which started at the beginning of May. Interim adjustments of the algorithms are now only possible at a cost charge. Teams, therefore, need to consider the trade-off between the costs of modifying their algorithms and the expected positive effect of their intervention on the final net profit. The end growing dates are expected mid-to-end of June but solely rely on the control strategies and decisions made by the algorithms. ●
Wageningen University & Research’s (WUR) research into smart agricultural and horticultural robots will receive 12 to 17 million euros from the Netherlands’ national investment programme NXTGEN HIGHTECH.
The Netherlands is the third largest exporter of machines in argi and food technology in the world, and Dutch companies and knowledge institutions want to continue to play a leading role in this field. To this end, NXTGEN HIGHTECH was created. In total more than one billion euros has been distributed within the high-tech sector, of which almost 200 million euros is earmarked for hands-free agri-food. Robot technology for agriculture and horticulture is one of the six application areas within the fund.
It’s expected the contribution from the fund should make it possible to grow crops as autonomously as possible. “Agriculture still requires a lot of manual work and labour is becoming scarcer. That is one reason to further develop robotics in agriculture and horticulture," says Erik Pekkeriet, program manager of Agro Food Robotics research at WUR. “On the other hand, you would like to encourage sustainability. To do so, we need tools with sensors that collect data and support decision-making. That way, farmers can make much better choices and use chemicals, water, fertilizer and energy more economically. And it will also become easier to make decisions that ensure more biodiversity. At the same time, it allows you to better manage the quality of your product.” WUR will work on this together with dozens of (business) partners.
WUR is focusing on technical development and extensive testing and integration on a farm scale. Farms, greenhouses, and factories of the future are emerging throughout the country, with each area of application being given its own location. Most of the new systems from the project should be ready for use by 2029. ●
