Engineering and Manufacturing - Agri-EPI Centre - Precision Innovation

Engineering and Manufacturing

Collaborating with engineers and manufacturers, Agri-EPI explores and delivers precision farming engineering, technology and innovation in agriculture across soil, crops and livestock.Our broad membership includes representatives from engineering and manufacturing in support of UK farming, innovation and technology. We also partner with universities and colleges the length and breadth of the British Isles.

Women in Engineering Day 2023

This Women in Engineering day we are celebrating the work and achievements of women engineers around the world. At Agri-EPI, we celebrate our CTO Trisha Toop and Agri-Tech Sustainability Analyst, Emily Laskin, who come from engineering backgrounds and who are leading Agri-EPI’s sustainability efforts.

Trisha has an interdisciplinary background in engineering, genetics, and biochemistry and has worked as a research scientist, sustainability and techno-economic analysis expert, and innovation manager for a number of companies. She brings her passion for engineering and sustainable innovation to her work as CTO, and has spearheaded Agri-EPI’s new Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) offering within the company.

Trisha said:

“Engineering has broken free from the confines of its male-dominated stereotype, embracing a new era where it thrives on smart design and the pursuit of efficiencies.”

Emily studied Biosystems Engineering at the University of California, Davis, and has spent the last few years supporting technical activity across AEC’s commercial farm network. She is now a qualified LCA practitioner, delivering sustainability analyses of R&D projects for agricultural clients across the UK. She leads in providing a framework for sustainability within Agri-EPI.

Emily said:

“Engineering is a hugely important tool for improving the sustainability of our food systems. There is so much opportunity in this field – I would encourage any young engineers to consider applying their skills to agricultural technology.”

This Women in Engineering day serves as a testament to the invaluable contributions of women like Trisha and Emily, whose passion and expertise are transforming the field of engineering and forging a path toward a more sustainable and inclusive future.

Tackling Ash Dieback Disease with agri-tech

Ash Dieback Disease (ADD) is a destructive disease of Ash trees, especially England’s native Ash species, that threatens forestry productivity and biodiversity in the UK. ADD was first detected in the UK in 2012 and is forecast to eventually kill 80% of UK ash trees, at a predicted cost of £15bn, with £7.6 billion being the estimate for the next 10years (Hill et al., 2019).

As one of England’s most useful and versatile native tree species, Ash provides an important commercial revenue stream to Ash growers who produce Ash across the UK. Ash timber is strong, durable, and flexible, with a wide range of practical uses such as tool handles, flooring, furniture, and joinery. Ash provides valuable habitat for a wide range of dependent species. It grows in a variety of soils and climatic conditions. The ‘airy’ nature of its foliage allows light to penetrate to the woodland floor, encouraging ground plants and fauna. Several insects, other invertebrates, lichens, and mosses depend wholly on Ash for habitat.

A collaborative project between Agri-EPI Centre and Vertinetik will use emerging technology to develop predictive models of ADD and other tree diseases, which can be integrated with decision support systems to inform management of England’s Ash trees. The project aims to provide an affordable solution to benefit smaller woodland owners in identifying disease infestations and taking proactive intervention measures to protect the economic and ecological value of Ash trees.

Kalique Dugarte, Co-founder of Vertinetik said:

“We are living through a period of climate crisis. Farmers and woodland owners sit at the front row among those having to experience it first. Changing weather patterns and alien invasive pests and diseases all represent new challenges to the preservation of woodlands. The severity of this challenge can be illustrated by Ash dieback and how an entire native tree species is under threat. So there is a call for action.”

“At Vertinetik, we believe in UAVs as a powerful low-cost alternative to the massification of technologies previously available to big budgets. Thanks to our project we will lower frictional costs to facilitate the mapping and monitoring of ash trees, record the state of the trees, and thus help farmers and woodland owners better manage ash dieback and plan routes to recovery and restoration of trees.”

On 6th June, Agri-EPI will host an online workshop in collaboration with Vertinetik about their project aimed at tackling the devastating impact of Ash dieback disease.

The workshop will provide the opportunity to brainstorm solutions that meet the needs of woodlands owners and learn more about the aims of the project. Speakers, including Kalique Dugarte, Kadmiel Maseyk and Joseph Fennell from Open University, and Simon James from Smallwoods, will provide an overview of the nature of the disease, the use of remote sensing for disease and stress detection, and the challenges of managing woodland areas affected by Ash Dieback.

Find out more here.

Automation and robotics for agriculture at Agri-EPI Centre

Agri-EPI, the centre for precision innovation in farming, is a first choice for agri-tech developers, from start-ups right through to established companies, to help with creating robust and commercially viable agricultural solutions.

Our team believes that it is vital that new agricultural technologies are both relevant and robust, build on well described initial design goals created from a strong understanding of the needs of farmers and their operations. If that is not done, then there will be delays in the development of the product and eventually quality, which will have ongoing negative effects on the trust of farmers in the product. Short testing cycles compound that problem, so the data used to design and build the systems needs to be of very high quality.

Our offer
Agri-EPI offers a wide-ranging set of facilities, equipment, and services. Our farm network is a key part of this, enabling the testing spaces and long-term interaction with farmers which we rely upon. Within the engineering team, we support the farm network and projects through our data engineering, data analysis and robotics specialisms.

Key resources include:

  • Multi-modal agricultural data
  • Spectral imaging and sensing
  • Agricultural data analysis
  • System simulation
  • Development / Robotic platforms
  • Data and robotics in agriculture consulting

Find out more here:

Engineering R&D brochure

Live grain robot demo success on farm in the South West

On Tuesday 14th March Agri-EPI hosted a live demonstration of the Crover grain monitoring robotic solution at Manor Farms, Stratton-on-the-Fosse, kindly hosted by Jeremy Padfield and Rob Addicott who farm in partnership together.

They are both tenants of the Duchy of Cornwall and have been a LEAF Demonstration Farm since 2006 and members of the Agri-EPI Innovation Farm network since 2017. Working together as neighbouring farmers has brought many benefits to Rob and Jeremy such as shared machinery and investment costs. It has also allowed them to take up a number of precision farming techniques to help their businesses become more sustainable, such as engaging in the Crover project.

Crover’s first-of-its-kind grain monitoring robotic solution allows for a greater understanding of the real situation of grains stored in bulk, thanks to its patented method for locomotion through bulk solids, enabling grain storage operators to implement accurate Integrated Pest Management (IPM) practices to maintain the quality of their stock. The CROVER robot is the world’s first ‘underground drone’ in the sense of the first device able to propel itself below the surface of dense granular media such as sand, grains and powders.

It was a very successful event with great feedback and engagement from the guests and the demonstration in the grain shed went smoothly.

International Day of Mathematics

Happy International Day of Mathematics! Mathematics plays a significant role in agricultural technology in several ways:

  1. Modeling crop growth: Mathematical models are used to simulate the growth of crops. These models use mathematical equations to represent the different factors that affect crop growth, such as temperature, rainfall, soil nutrients, and pests. By using these models, farmers can predict how their crops will grow under different conditions and make informed decisions about when to plant, irrigate, fertilise, and harvest.
  2. Precision agriculture: In precision agriculture, farmers use technology to apply inputs (such as water, fertiliser, and pesticides) precisely where they are needed. This technique relies heavily on mathematical models, data analytics, and sensors to measure and monitor different parameters, such as soil moisture, nutrient levels, and pest populations.
  3. Farm management: Farmers need to keep track of a lot of data, such as crop yields, soil characteristics, weather patterns, and market prices. Mathematical tools help them organise and analyse this data, make predictions, and optimise their operations.
  4. Genetics and breeding: Mathematics is also used in genetics and breeding to study the inheritance of traits and develop new varieties of crops that are more productive, disease-resistant, and climate-tolerant. Mathematical models can help researchers identify the genes that control these traits, predict the outcomes of different breeding strategies, and optimise the selection of new varieties.

Overall, mathematics is an essential tool in agricultural technology, helping farmers and researchers make informed decisions and optimise their operations to meet the growing demand for food in a sustainable way.

Over the last months Agri-EPI has invested in the expansion of its team focused on data, engineering, and math, bringing on several new members and enabling them to offer a set of services to assist in the creation of agri-tech products.

Eliot Dixon, Head of Engineering, said:

“The team of platform and spectral imaging experts uses our fleet of sensors and specialist software to deliver a range of sensing products such as ground truthing for AI model generation, or the creation of digital twins. We are also now able to offer UAV and UGV platforms as a means to test novel sensors and end-effectors without the need for a bespoke vehicle. And through working closely with our innovation farm network, we are creating a heavily layered source of evidence for developers using our farm network to design and test their innovations.”

Agri-EPI’s GIS Data Analyst, Yingwang Gao, majored in Agricultural Engineering, and has a PhD degree specialising in Hyperspectral Imaging Applications, as well as postdoc experience working as Research Associate. In addition to a strong academic background, he has accumulated several years of industrial work experience, mainly on spectral imaging systems, R&D, and spectral imaging data analysis in various application domains. He has a strong passion for remote sensing and photogrammetry. At Agri-EPI, he takes care of data acquisition and data processing from different types of sensors, including RGB, multispectral, hyperspectral, LiDAR, and GPR, to identify and map out features of interest in the agricultural sector, to help farmers with better decision-making in agricultural management.

Agri-EPI’s new R&D Equipment Technician, Aditya Jadhav, pursued his bachelors in aeronautical engineering, where he learned various aspects of flying machines. He set up an aeromodelling club with a few of his classmates where they designed, built and tested various configurations of small UAVs. The MSc program for Autonomous vehicle dynamics and control was structured for students to gain a deeper understanding of unmanned systems. Aditya was part of a group project that built a surveillance system with a swarm of autonomous drones, and an individual project sponsored by the Railway Safety and Standards Board which aimed to design and develop an autonomous vehicle which can operate in a station environment. The advancements in robotics and the urgent need of integrating robotics with sustainable agriculture were the driving forces for him deciding to work in the agri-tech sector. As the R&D Equipment Technician, Aditya looks after all the deployable assets that are in service to the company, which includes maintenance, asset tracking and deployment, and organising the logistics.

Panagis Tzivras, Agri-EPI’S GIS Software Engineer, is a GIS expert with strong technical skills who is highly invested in programming. In his previous roles working with startups and the commercial sector, he was involved in data collection and extraction, maintaining data pipelines and building geospatial processes and automation updates. At Agri-EPI Centre he is helping to leverage the measurement resources of the centre to create high quality dataset and support systems. He is working on creating tools and code to enable the automation of data collection from a wide variety of sources available to Agri-EPI Centre.

Lastly, Aidan Robertson has joined the Agri-EPI Engineering team as their new Graduate Data Analyst. Aidan’s background is in mathematics, which he studied at University of Warwick for four years before looking for jobs related to data science. He has been working on projects related to the health and wellbeing of cows, specifically by reformatting farm datasets to be sent out for analysis. Soon, there are plans for him to begin a more ambitious project to develop a costings estimator for RAS in agriculture. This is a long-term task, but the ultimate goal would be to offer it as a service for farmers looking to introduce robotic systems into their farms. The most interesting part of agri-tech for Aidan is the data, and what it actually says about the performance of a system, as well as what can be done to help the problems being faced by the agri-tech sector at present.

 

 

Agri-EPI’s Farm Tech Circle

Last summer Agri-EPI Centre launched the Farm Tech Circle, a new platform for farmers, growers and producers to discover and connect on topics that focus on enhancing the profitability and sustainability of agriculture.​ To learn more and to share this new network with members of the farming community who you think would like to be kept up to date with the latest news in agri-tech, please see below:

Farm Tech Circle

 

FTC Newsletter 1

FTC Newsletter 2

FTC Newsletter 3

FTC Newsletter 4