Design of test environments for physical testing
Summary
Design of test environments for physical testing
S00106
Version: 1.10
- arable farming
- horticulture
- viticulture
- test design
- design/documentation; other (including: nothing)
- Location: at user’s premises; in Italy
- Offered by: POLIMI; UNIMI
Description
Any test activity involves three main components, i.e.: environment (where the tests take place), protocol (defining what tests are executed and how) and evaluation metrics (used to assess the results of the tests).
This service covers the design of a physical testing environment for use cases such as, e.g., weeding, plant phenotyping, and precision spraying solutions. Depending on your requirements and reference system/solution to be tested, our team will design an ad hoc setup equipped with all the required features for testing. Environmental features include, for example:
the crop and weed species to be prepared and their growth stage,
the plant layout and intra-row configuration,
seasonal weather and climate-related conditions (e.g., lighting conditions, wind, rain),
the type of soil, moisture level, and terrain conditions (e.g., uneven terrain, presence of any slopes, and so forth),
the technical infrastructure supporting the tests (e.g., electrical layout, network infrastructure, environmental sensors, …).
After a set of key environmental features have been identified, we conduct an assessment of the facilities already available within the AgrifoodTEF consortium and provide customers with a solution that takes advantage of characteristics already present in existing facilities but is also customised to meet their requirements. We then design and plan specific intervention measures such as procuring and planting specific crop and weed types, applying specialised treatments, etc.
Example service: designing a test environment for a weeding robot. The designed environment comprises 2 groups of 3 10-metres-long cultivated rows; one group receiving full sunlight and the other receiving shaded sunlight through trees.
The rows are be part of fields located in the northern part of Italy. Each group of 3 rows includes bean plants and Matricaria weeds, with the density of Matricaria Chamomilla increasing from one row to the next (3 levels). Presence of weeds different from Matricaria in the test environment is kept at a negligible level via manual weeding immediately before the tests.
The designed test environment includes a weatherproof 230 V AC network for powering test equipment and a wireless network for interconnection between them.