Horticulture

The Vision+Robotics programme combines our rich domain knowledge with technology: we bring together a diverse team of more than 40 experts in computer vision, robotics, AI, and spectral imaging from all corners of WUR. This unique synergy creates a powerhouse of tech-savvy researchers, united by a shared commitment to developing high-tech solutions that benefit both the planet and its inhabitants.

The main office is located in Lelystad, a region of predominantly arable farming on clay soil. The Lelystad office has a farm with more than 800 hectares of farmland. Besides the location in Lelystad, we also have farms in Randwijk (fruit orchard), Valthermond, Vredepeel and Westmaas, covering all arable farming regions and soil types in the Netherlands. 

As a trusted technology partner in the agri-food sector, it offers advanced capabilities across cloud environments as well as traditional architectures, integrating solutions for virtualisation, containers, and orchestration. This combination ensures enterprise-level scalability, security, and availability, enabling the deployment of innovative applications and access to advanced analytics and machine learning services.

Hispatec facility offers a wide range of technological infrastructure services tailored to the specific needs of each initiative: 

For this purpose, tensiometer LoRaWAN are devices to measure the soil moisture. A tensiometer consists of a vacuum gauge connected by a tube to a porous ceramic tip. The tube is filled with water. The ceramic tip is permeable, and the water in the tube saturates it. The tip is placed in contact with the soil in the root zone. Because the soil is normally not saturated, water is drawn from the tip into the soil. As water moves from the tube into the soil, a partial vacuum is created and measured by the gauge.

For this purpose, LoRaWAN tensiometers are devices for measuring the soil moisture. A tensiometer consists of a vacuum gauge connected by a tube to a porous ceramic tip. The tube is filled with water. The ceramic tip is permeable, and the water in the tube saturates it. The tip is placed in contact with the soil in the root zone. Because the soil is normally not saturated, water is drawn from the tip into the soil. As water moves from the tube into the soil, a partial vacuum is created and measured by the gauge.

Test and validation of autonomous navigation and mapping solutions for UGVs, by quantification of the system performance metrics through comparison with millimeter accuracy ground truth data for an agricultural field with rough terrains.