Project start: 01.09.2025
Project end: 31.08.2028
Sponsor: Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture

The aim of the iSoBeD project is to develop new, digital and AI-supported approaches for sustainable, efficient and practical irrigation solutions in vegetables and viticulture. In view of rising water consumption and increasing climatic challenges, digital technologies are to be used to define the water requirements of crops on a site-specific basis and to precisely control irrigation. The project focuses on the following areas: (i) Development of digital tools to model and optimize irrigation requirements in vegetable crops and viticulture on a site-specific basis. By integrating networked sensors, digital reconstructions of crop parameters or data-driven and AI models, respectively, these solutions should enable a more precise determination of needs and thus save water resources. (ii) Optimization and automation of irrigation methods for vegetable cultivation to enable variable rate control. Implementation using standardized protocols is supposed to simplify application accuracy and irrigation management across the process chain. (iii) Implementation of automated, plot- and site-specific irrigation for viticulture, primarily to ensure the long-term productivity and preservation of steep slopes characterizing entire landscapes. The developed methods are validated in field trials over several years and their suitability for practical application is tested on cooperating farms. In addition, the project promotes the strong involvement of practitioners and the transfer of knowledge to vegetable and wine farms through intensive dissemination, networking and transfer activities. This will lay the foundations for sustainable, digitally supported cultivation of specialty crops.

Project start: 01.11.2024
Project end: 31.10.2027
Sponsor: Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture

Autonomous field robots have enormous potential for ecologizing crop production and mitigating labor shortage. Although these systems are now ready for market, there are still major challenges, particularly with regard to their interaction with machine management, process control and the interaction between robot and implement. The aim of ISObot is to develop an integrated system for optimizing the operational management of field robots through improved interoperability at different levels, as well as automated process control. The starting point are commercial robot-implement combinations and a web-based machine management system. A process controller is being developed for weed management in viticulture, which uses sensors and intelligent algorithms to monitor and actively control the work process and document the quality of work. Another use case in arable farming will focus on monitoring the hoeing process and recording process parameters. In both cases, the robots will be linked to the machine management system via an IoT system in order to visualize process-relevant information via user-friendly interfaces and make it available for further agronomic use. Finally, approaches are being developed to bring communication between the subsystems involved into an automated, machine-readable form, primarily on the basis of the ISO 11783 (ISOBUS) standard, thus ensuring maximum interoperability at different levels without additional manual effort. Dissemination and transfer activities will be leveraged in the project to establish an exchange with agricultural practice. Eventually, another aim is to derive recommendations for further standardization efforts to improve the interoperability of electronic communication in agricultural machinery.