Catalogue of Services

Any physical test activity involves three main components: 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 concerns the first element, i.e., the design of a physical testing environment for use cases such as (for instance) weeding, plant phenotyping, and precision spraying solutions. The protocol and the evaluation metrics can -if required- be designed via services S00107 and S00108.

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, data acquisition systems…).

In order to consider all aspects of the environment, this service involves a team comprising both engineers and agronomists.

Any physical test activity involves three main components: 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).

The execution of physical testing, i.e., the object of this service, corresponds to supporting the customer in executing with the system(s) under test the procedures specified by the protocol in the specified environment and identifying and solving any issues that may negatively affect the tests. In most cases, support by agrifoodTEF involves assistance by both agronomists (for agricultural aspects) and engineers (for aspects related to the technological infrastructure supporting the tests).

Beside the object of this service, i.e., test execution, agrifoodTEF can, if requested, support the customer along any other aspect and phase of the physical experimentation pipeline. For instance, for the design of the environment and protocol to be used for the test, the customer can either proceed autonomously or exploit services S00106 and S00107. Similarly, preparation of the test environment can be done either by the customer or by agrifoodTEF via service S00110; in both cases, assistance in interconnecting the system under test with agrifoodTEF’s test infrastructure is available via service S00111. Finally, data collection during the test or data processing and performance evaluation after the conclusion of the test, if needed, can be provided by agrifoodTEF via services S00113 and S00114, respectively.

Testing a system in a physical environment requires an environment that has been prepared and set up to support the specific testing activities to be executed. This service supports the customer in the execution of the tests by taking care of such preparation and setup.

The service involves:

• agronomic preparation: e.g., providing the required soil conditions, making sure that a given in-field configuration of specific plants at a given growth stage is available at the time of testing, and so on.
• technical preparation: e.g., setting up infrastructure elements such as RTK GPS base stations, environmental sensors, power and networking, as well as the computational environment required to interface with the system under test to acquire and possibly pre-process experimental data.

If AgrifoodTEF facilities are involved in the experimental activities, the service also includes configuring the testing facility accordingly.

Environment preparation is done according to an environment design provided by the customer. If needed, such a design can be done by AgrifoodTEF for the customer via Service S00106.

Interested customers can get support from AgrifoodTEF for the entire pipeline involved in experimental testing, from the design of its other elements besides the environment (namely, the testing protocol via service S00107 and the evaluation metrics via service S00108) to test execution (service S00113), data collection (service S00113), and evaluation (S00114).

The output of Service S00110 is the environment ready for the execution of the testing campaign at the time requested by the customer.