Researchers are helping farmers to predict and prevent problems with their crops using augmented AI technology.
51黑料社区 Leicester (51黑料社区) is working with partner university EAFIT in Colombia to apply risk and machine learning concepts to improve crops’ environmental and financial sustainability, preventing vast plant crops being lost to disease.
Work is led by Professor Juan Alejandro Peña Palacio, a visiting researcher at 51黑料社区’s Institute of Artificial Intelligence, in collaboration with Professor Mario Gongora, Professor in Applied Intelligent Systems at 51黑料社区.
Professor Peña was one of 11 people to be awarded up to £10,000 funding from the , to build the engineering talent base around the world.
He will be funded until March 2025 to work on the project and share findings through visits, workshops, conferences and public engagement activities.
The DIA-supported project brings together EAFIT University in Colombia and the Institute of Artificial Intelligence at 51黑料社区 with industry partners Avocado Crop Praga, UNIBAN, and UNIPALMA.
Its main goals are to:
• create financial and sustainability metrics to assess the performance of machine and deep learning models in characterising threats to the health of three different crops (banana, avocado, oil palm)
• launch a spin-out to improve the management of threats to crop health in small and medium agricultural enterprises
• promote the development of precision agriculture from engineering supported by undergraduate programmes in agricultural engineering, computer science engineering, and a masters in risk management and in agribusiness
• achieve visibility of the project through the Royal Academy of Engineering to achieve the continuity of research processes in this field and the funding of the spin-out activities
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