In November 2019, the High Performance Greenhouse project (HiPerGreen) was nominated for the RAAK Award 2019, as one of the best applied research projects in the Netherlands. This paper discusses the challenges faced, lessons learned and critical factors in making the project into a success.
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On April 12th 2019, researchers, students and consortia gathered at the World Horti Centre for an update on the overall status of the HiPerGreen project. The day consisted of presentations from a variety of the HiPerGreen students, staff and guest speakers. There were a variety of exciting updates from the technological and biological realms of the project, as well as an insightful presentation from Deliflor’s Geert Van Geest on Deliflor and their interests in imaging of chrysanthemums. Several new pieces of technology have arisen from the HiPerGreen project. The first being a rail-based imaging system capable of traversing the greenhouse using the heating pipes commonly found in Dutch greenhouses. The drone landing dock has also taken great steps forward and finally, HiPerGreen has partnered with drone manufacture Avular, a company working on the world’s first ‘ultra-wide band’ localized indoor drone. From a biological standpoint significant progress has been made regarding long-term plant monitoring with a focus on reducing fusarium occurrence in the crop. Students are working in climate chambers to model the symptoms of fusarium infection in orchids. Students are also working at Deliflor using the railsystem to measure uniformity in chrysanthemum test crops. Research with the multispectral camera continued and the team hopes to integrate the imaging into mass plant monitoring. The sympoium was concluded with a drink.
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The two-year education programme HiPerGreen initiated by Inholland University of Applied Sciences came to a closure on Friday 27th September 2019 at the World Horti Center in Naaldwijk. The Final symposium gave consortium partners and other guests the opportunity to learn about the HiPerGreen’s team achievements and the various outputs the programme delivered. After the welcome word of lector Robotica Cock Heemskerk, Tom KerneyMitchell, biology researcher, summarized the efforts that the team made in plant monitoring (ranging from growth monitoring and prediction, chamber testing research to delivering fusarium maps to growers). Next Lucien Fesselet, project manager at HiPerGreen and CTO of Applied Drone Innovations) took the public through the team’s technology fails, trials and successes over the two-year programme. Sheelagh Bouvier, market researcher for HiPerGreen, shortly explained that she conducted desk research, field visits in greenhouses, interviews with growers and IP research. Then partner Roy van Rosmalen from Ter Laak Orchids, explained how crucial data was in order to run large orchid greenhouses. He saw HiPerGreen’s monitoring solutions such as the drone and the rail system as the answers to current data gaps. Mauro Gallo, lector Biomimicry at InHolland, announced HiPerGreens follow up project Flapping Wings. The symposium’s final speaker was William Simmonds, CEO of Applied Drone Innovations , a spinoff startup born from the HiPerGreen programme. The symposium was concluded with a drink.
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Friday 23rd March 2018 the first HiPerGreen semi-annual symposium took place at the newly opened World Horti Center in Naaldwijk. Participants in the form of students, professors and company representatives came together to share progress and ideas. Cock Heemskerk, lector Robotica, opened the event with a welcoming speech. Lucien Fesselet, assistant project manager, followed with general updates on the project. Then the floor was given to the students to present their results and progress. Pieter van der Hoeven, associate lector, presented on behalf of four graduating students from the Business, Finance and Law department the assignment on market research. The findings show great potential in business opportunity with the Orchid market. Amora Amir, a potential PhD researcher on big data, gave a speech on the usefulness and the need to understand big amounts of data. Lucien Fesselet performed a live flight demonstration to give an idea of the capabilities and the behaviour of the drone. After the risk analasys the sympoium was concluded with a drink.
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This paper describes the concept of a new algorithm to control an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) for accurate autonomous indoor flight. Inside a greenhouse, Global Positioning System (GPS) signals are not reliable and not accurate enough. As an alternative, Ultra Wide Band (UWB) is used for localization. The noise is compensated by combining the UWB with the delta position signal from a novel optical flow algorithm through a Kalman Filter (KF). The end result is an accurate and stable position signal with low noise and low drift.
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Students, researchers, professors and company representatives gathered to share progress and ideas at the second half-year symposium of HiPerGreen at the World Horti Center in Naaldwijk. HiPerGreen is a Raak MKB subsidised research project aiming to bring value to horticultural growers. Cock Heemskerk, head of the HiPerGreen project and lector Robotica at InHolland University of Applied Sciences, welcomed everyone and gave an overall status update. Then Lucien, Fesselet project manager at HiPerGreen, talked about the minimal viable product (MVP) to make automated detection of fusarium in Phalaenopsis (a type of orchid) possible. Three consortium partners were invited to explain what they do for HiPerGreen and what their motives for participation are: Igno Breukers (DB2-Vision, start-up of a new type of multispectral camera for Precision Agriculture), Tim Brander (head grower at Hazeu Orchids) and Tom Kearny-Mitchel (plant biology advisor at Applied Drone Innovations). Next several students summarised their team’s work, findings and failures to the audience. During the live demo Lucien unveiled one of the team’s newly-built technologies: live stream thermal images of plants. The sympoium was concluded with a brainstorm session and drink.
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Friday 27th October 2018 the official kick-off event unfolded at Inholland University of Applied Sciences in Delft. Participants from numerous companies and research establishments congregated to make new acquaintances and share their ideas. The dean of Inholland Delft, Gerard van Oosten, gave a welcoming speech. Next lector Robotica Cock Heemskerk formally introduced the unique HiPerGreen project. Several guest speakers presented additional subject related information: Jeremy Harbinson (distinguished researcher in plant physiology atm Wageningen UR), David Pajares (AvioniCS – a company specialised in rapid prototyping and control systems for small UAVs) and Arash Noroozi (ElpaNav, a start-up company for localisation technology). Lucien Fesselet, assistant project manager, resumed the day with a brief history of the ‘Drones in de kas’ project where HiPerGreen evolved from. Then the audience were split into smaller groups to assess the risks associated within each project work package. A important outcome was the consensus that the business case validation should be started right from the beginning. The kick-off was concluded with a drink.
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To better control the growing process of horticulture plants greenhouse growers need an automated way to efficiently and effectively find where diseases are spreading.The HiPerGreen project has done research in using an autonomous quadcopter for this scouting. In order for the quadcopter to be able to scout autonomously accurate location data is needed. Several different methods of obtaining location data have been investigated in prior research. In this research a relative sensor based on optical flow is looked into as a method of stabilizing an absolute measurement based on trilateration. For the optical flow sensor a novel block matching algorithm was developed. Simulated testing showed that Kalman Filter based sensor fusion of both measurements worked to reduce the standard deviation of the absolute measurement from 30 cm to less than 1 cm, while drift due to dead-reckoning was reduced to a maximum of 11 cm from over 36 cm.
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Greenhouses are in need of new monitoring tools, as they size grow bigger and bigger but still using old labour intensive methods ways of caring for the crop. HiPerGreen is set out to create a new tool, which can drive onto the pre-existing heating pipes to provide a birds eye perspective for image analysis purposes. However, clear images are necessary for consistent usable data. This presentation resumes the steps taken during the reporting: the optimisation of a rail based system towards clear images. This is done through analysis of resulting images, understanding vibrations and oscillations, and finally presents results based on prototyping. Moreover, a re-design of the electronics and hardware was also introduce to facilitate prototyping. The results are promising, laying within the requirements.
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This guide is a useful tool for the VisionExplorers game. The guide explains different farm visions, success factors and measures. The guide also helps you to find measures that fit well with your company vision. In short, this guide provides additional explanation during and after playing the game.
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This guide is a useful tool for the VisionExplorers game. The guide explains different farm visions, success factors and measures. The guide also helps you to find measures that fit well with your company vision. In short, this guide provides additional explanation during and after playing the game.
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