ISQ CONTRIBUTES SOLUTIONS FOR SMART AGRICULTURE
The terms Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Machine Learning and Internet of Things are on the agenda in different sectors and services and one of them is agriculture. It is the digital world that revolutionizes what we cultivate and how and when we should do it, bringing advantages related to reduced losses, increased production, traceability and accuracy. The agricultural sector faces several challenges related to the growing variability of climatic conditions, directly associated with the dynamics of crop growth, plant health, diseases and pest inflows. ISQ has solutions that aim to provide resources and technological services to support the decision for sustainable and intelligent agriculture, helping to develop preventive actions against plant health problems (Project InteliCROP – ESA SMALL ARTES). "It is about improving the monitoring of agricultural variables by providing reliable information and forecasts on production, agricultural indicators, vegetation indices, or plant health risks, well in advance, to facilitate responses and contingency planning that can protect crops," said Pedro Matias, president of ISQ. With the integrated InteliCROP platform "it is possible to enhance the capabilities of Earth observation methods and artificial intelligence methods, which allows the identification of patterns and correlations in specific agro-climatic data for mapping occurrences in agriculture", continues Pedro Matias . This solution is intended for farmers, agricultural technicians, cooperatives or associations and regional directorates, not discarding consultants, research institutes or even insurance companies. Another example of innovation in agriculture is the transfer of scientific and technological knowledge to promote the competitiveness of the Northern Region, particularly the business fabric. This project (MAIS Tec – a consortium consisting of ISQ, SANJOTEC, University of Aveiro, and Tecminho) is aligned with the specialization present in the region Between the Douro and Vouga, betting on the transfer of scientific and technological knowledge from the R&I system to companies. A sum, promotes the promotion of the qualification of the region through technology. Continuing on the path of technology in this sector, cutting-edge research can also be applied to greenhouses. In this sense, ISQ has also developed an IoT device, a digital platform for monitoring greenhouses: smartgreenhouse. The aim is to contribute to sustainable agriculture by increasing knowledge of culture and intervening variables. "The IoT device allows you to measure in real time several indicators, e.g. temperature, air humidity, luminosity, soil moisture (substrate crop), electroconductivity of irrigation solution (hydroponics crop), pH of irrigation solution (hydroponics crop), CO2, O2, air quality", explains Pedro Matias. The measured data is sent wirelessly to a database integrated into the digital platform. The developed platform allows you to visualize data history, monitor in real time the measured variables, or implement advanced models for data processing and analysis. Thus, the results are made available in a web interface, with the possibility of also being presented in an android application. 