Let the Plants do the Talking: Climate-Smart Agriculture by the Messages Received from Plants and Soil

Table of Contents

Seminars-2-2024 - This article is part of a series.

Part 1: The Dawn of an Immersive Internet: XR, Generative AI and the Road to 6G

Part 2: AGI Chips - The Next Frontier

Part 3: Generalist vs Specialist Language Models

Part 4: From Intelligent Surfaces to Noise-Driven Communication: Innovative Technologies for 6G and Beyond

Part 5: An Overview of Evolutionary Multi-Objective Optimization

Part 6: Packet Trimming at the Edge for Low Latency in 6G Environments

Part 7: Scientific Machine Learning and Quantum Utility: A Near Future Perspective

Part 8: Cloud Storage Systems: Latency Characterization and Extensions

Part 9: This Article

Part 10: More is different: How the Science of Complex Systems can inspire Future Autonomous Networks

Abstract #

As reported in the report recently issued by the United Nations (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – IPCC Report 2021), the benefits that technology provides to a green and sustainable economy are highly appreciated and under intense research and development globally. Circuits and Systems (CAS), which are the base for any system, can bring the needed functionalities and performances for reaching eco-friendly, circular and practical solutions. The IoT active connections in agriculture (as an example in Europe) are exponentially increasing, proving that Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA or Precision/Smart Agriculture) is a very fast-growing research field, where more controlled quality production, water use optimisation, and a lower spreading of pesticides and fertilisers are some key issues, serving the improvement of food quality, but also helping the respect of agriculture for the environment. To reach these targets, electronics are the perfect tool for interfacing the data sources, extracting and processing the data, and obtaining the needed information along the whole food chain: from the farmer and the professional stakeholders to the consumers. In the Distinguished Lecture, an overview of electronics for CSA will be presented, analysing the possible solutions that can bring important innovations, advancing the actual strategies based on remote or indirect measurements by instead of in-place measuring the plant and soil parameters (a.k.a. Let the Plants do The Talking), associated with more standard information derived from environmental conditions. This new and disruptive technology, related to Wearable Sensors for Plants, the World Economic Forum has recently identified it as one of the “Top five technologies about to change the world”, indicating it as one of the key solutions to increase food production by 70% by 2050 to be able to feed the world population. Application scenarios for crop monitoring, water control, information communication and decision support will be presented. In particular, it will be analysed technologies for reaching the needed levels of low power and low cost and the efficient ones to be applied to AgriFood at the global scale, also supporting food security and sustainability.

Bio of Danilo Demarchi #

Danilo Demarchi is Full Professor at Politecnico di Torino, Department of Electronics and Telecommunications. Smart System Integration and IoTs for the AgriFood Value Chain and for BioMedical Devices. Pioneer in the research on Wearable Plant Sensors. Visiting Professor at EPFL Lausanne (2019) and at Tel Aviv University (2018-2021). Visiting Scientist (2018) at MIT and Harvard Medical School for the project SISTER (Smart electronic IoT SysTEms for Rehabilitation sciences). Author and co-author of 5 patents and more than 350 scientific publications in international journals and peer-reviewed conference proceedings. Leading the eLiONS (electronic Life-Oriented iNtelligent Systems - http://elions.polito.it) Laboratory of Politecnico di Torino and coordinating the Italian Institute of Technology Microelectronics group at Politecnico di Torino (IIT@DET). Founder and Editor in Chief of the IEEE Transactions on AgriFood Electronics -TAFE ( https://ieee-cas.org/publication/ieee-transactions-agrifood-electronics). Founder and General-Co-Chair of the IEEE Conference on AgriFood Electronics - CAFE ( https://2023.iee-cafe.org). Founder and Vice-Chair of the IEEE CAS Special Interest Group on AgriFood Electronics. 2023-2024 Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE CAS Society with the Lecture “Let the Plants Do the Talking: Smart Agriculture by the messages received from Plants and Soil”. Founder at Politecnico di Torino of the Master’s Degree in AgriTech Engineering, where he is teaching the course of “IoT for Agriculture”. Member of the IEEE Sensors Council (2020-2023) and the BioCAS Technical Committee (2013-today). Associate Editor of the IEEE Open Journal on Engineering in Medicine and Biology (OJ-EMB) and the Springer-Nature Journal BioNanoScience. Senior Member of IEEE. General Chair of IEEE BioCAS (Biomedical Circuits and Systems) Conference in 2017 in Torino and founder of IEEE FoodCAS Workshop (Circuits and Systems for the FoodChain). TPC Co-Chair of IEEE ICECS 2019, IEEE BioCAS 2021 and 2022 conferences. General Co-Chair of IEEE BioCAS 2023. Organizer of the 3rd Seasonal School on AgriFood Electronics: Smart Technologies for a Sustainable Agriculture in Torino, September 2022.