Desk assessment activities for physical systems
Summary
Desk assessment activities for physical systems
S00109
Version: 1.10
- arable farming
- horticulture
- viticulture
- desk assessment
- design/documentation
- Location: at user’s premises; in Italy
- Offered by: POLIMI; UNIMI
Description
Through this assessment, we offer customers a complete feasibility study of the use cases and systems that customers would like to test. Examples of systems and subsystems requiring physical testing can include, but are not limited to precision spraying systems, perception systems (e.g., based on vision), weeding machines, robotised fruit picking systems, localisation, mapping and navigation subsystems, and others.
The desk assessment starts from analysing the use cases specified by the customer and performing a preliminary definition of possible test environments and protocols. The second stage requires an analysis of the system features to be tested at a physical testing and experimentation facility according to the preliminary protocol. Finally, we evaluate how the current system features align with the desired outcomes and test requirements and provide guidelines and advice about how this alignment can be improved.
This assessment is crucial to provide customers with key information on elements of the system that need to be further developed to become “fit for testing”, changes to apply to either the system or the testing facility to meet the test requirements (see also S00110).
Example service: The customer is interested in testing solutions to autonomously detect hydric stress in grapevines. Initial validation rounds performed by the customer on Red Globe vineyards have shown unreliable performance; thus, the solution is not yet ready for testing in an experimental context that closely matches its target market. The customer wants to: i) improve the performance of the current solution (e.g., to improve its performance according to metrics defined via service S00108), ii) extend the validation to the Cabernet Sauvignon grape variety. Based on these requirements, the desk assessment will provide the customer with: a list of priority changes to apply to the system (e.g., overview of functionalities to integrate from more recent and up-to-date models, recommended sensor upgrades with makes and models, …), an analysis of error causes and technical barriers (e.g., detection based on hyperspectral cameras not mature enough, significant investments in chemical analyses and expert human assessment also required), a mapping of the requirements to resources already available within the consortium or in the market (e.g., facilities within the consortium that enable controlled irrigation, existing datasets covering the Cabernet Sauvignon variety, …).