- João Rodrigues
- Research Funding Advisor
- [email protected]
- +351917901022
- Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS (FhP-AICOS)
- Research Organisation (Private)
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Fraunhofer Portugal's Research Center for Assistive Information and Communication Solutions (FhP-AICOS) is located in Porto and was born in 2009 following a partnership between the Fraunhofer Society (Fraunhofer Gesellschaft), the Foundation for Science and Technology and the University of Porto.
With a team of over 80 hired researchers and a client portfolio from a broad range of areas, such as health, agriculture, retail or energy, FhP-AICOS has consolidated competences in:
- Human-Centred Design
- Artificial Intelligence
- Cyber-physical systemsUser analysis in different environments, computer vision, cognitive and decision support systems, and the internet of things are some of the fields of study in this research centre which steers its activities towards applied research and its clients’ success, with whom it establishes close cooperation for the development of innovative, intuitive, accessible and ubiquitous technological solutions. Currently, the innovation themes of interest to FhP-AICOS are the following:
- Cognitive connected solutions
- Digital farming
- Accountable artificial intelligence
- Decentralised health technology
- Living and ageing with dataFhP-AICOS’ track record in institutional and commercial collaborations has built a wide network of active partners. Since 2009, FhP-AICOS has been involved in more than 10 European projects and established partnerships with over 150 organizations in 30-plus countries.
- Topic 2.2.1 (RIA) A step toward carbon-neutral farms: coupling renewable energy sources with circular farming systems.
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Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS has know-how on wireless sensor and communication networks tailored for the monitoring of different environmental parameters (ambient temperature, ambient humidity, hydroponics bags’ water level, pH, lighting, etc.) that are of great importance not only to guarantee the sustainability of crops (suitable use of water, fair application of pesticides and nutrients), but also to result in produce with high quality. Moreover, our background includes computer vision, image acquisition and processing, recommender systems, and machine learning to help detecting plagues and monitoring the health of the crops, providing farmers useful information to keep track of their produce.
Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS’ body of knowledge and technologies in agriculture were built considering different types of crops, namely tomato, lettuce, strawberry, and grapes, and their design was the result of co-creation with the target stakeholders. Thus, the resulting flexible technology is suitable for adaptation to other cultures and for different actors. This feature is of great interest to us, and we are keen to update such technology in the context of this project proposal to allow resulting crops (and its different cycle processes: growth, handling, storage, transportation, among others) to have quality compatible with the GRI certification.
Within the scope of this project proposal, Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS can contribute with a monitoring and recommendation system designed to span large cultivated areas, and based on low-cost wireless sensor networks. Besides the sensors deployed on the field, the system may consider the data (e.g., data reports, photos) produced by those acting directly on the field (e.g., agronomist, farmer, farming engineer) through easy-to-use mobile applications running on their personal devices (i.e., smartphones, tablets).
This data collection can be housed in the farm servers and/or in cloud-based platforms which are enhanced by machine learning and recommendation algorithms that shall provide real-time information about the crops, and can suggest or even take automated actions that target satisfactory levels of economic, social and environmental sustainability of the agro-food business, allowing improvement of the respective food chain production, compliance with GRI standards, and a better positioning upon the EU market.