The growing introduction of automated or even autonomous machinery on farms makes the need for good quality data more critical. Moreover, the demand is increasing to log the outputs of those machines for analysis, documentation and compliance. However, current datafiles sent to, or retrieved from machinery lack quality standards. They cannot be certified because any guarantee on the integrity of the used data and workflow is missing. HASHTAG is therefore leveraging space assets and services to safeguard the reliability of data ensuring trusted application and governance. Within a period of two years, three building blocks will be developed to proof our concept: 1. Standardising protocols, logging and verifying prescribed tasks using machine data flows to assure as-applied maps are trustworthy. 2. Standardising the processing of high quality EO data from Copernicus into prescription maps. 3. Using Galileo’s High Accuracy Service and Navigation Message Authenticator in a GNSS receiver to provide trusted and accurate machine positioning. Integrating these components will result in a workflow capable of generating a transparant and authenticated data chain of EO data to as-applied maps. This is relevant for current reality, where food production and processing are international businesses with ingredients from around the world, governed by food standards and environmental regulations. Our solution, deploying space assets, can be used anywhere in the world, hence leveraging European knowledge and expertise to enable the next level of sustainable and regenerative farming. International partners from Serbia are included and use cases in Brazil, Ukraine and Indonesia will be explored. HASHTAG will reach out to standardisation initiatives in agritech to promote its results and increase impacts. The specific advantages that the European space infrastructure offer, are important to develop globally acceptable and affordable private and public uptake of our space assets.

The MISTRALE project proposes to address soils moisture management in agriculture as well as wetlands or flooded areas monitoring by using Global Navigation Satellite Systems reflected signals (GNSS-R) as a powerful technology for humidity or flooded mapping. The detection by GNSS-R is known to be much more reliable than visible/NIR imagery, and will be usable even under a cloud cover, during the night and even under vegetation (bushes, grass, trees) when passive remote sensing is not applicable. The main objective is to demonstrate a service chain in different use cases : pilot projects will be carried out in soil humidity mapping for agriculture (optimizing the water resource management), wetlands and flooded areas (risk management, flood-prone areas, damages evaluation). In order to meet the objectives, a GNSS-R receiver embedded into a small RPAS (Remotely Piloted Aircraft System) will be developed and implemented into an operational chain to provide the service. GNSS-R technology aims at measuring the GNSS signals reflected on the ground, and, compared to the direct signals, permits a measurement of the soil humidity (from 0 to 100%) as well as flooded extend. The use of GALILEO signals will significantly improve the precision of mapping. The operational system will integrate three main axes of development: adapting the GNSS-R technology for the requirements, making a compact GNSS-R receiver and optimizing an existing RPAS. Using EGNOS and GALILEO in the project will also improve navigation capabilities of small RPAS (<4Kg) and contribute to the development of regulations for their integration in airspace. We assembled a consortium that addresses all aspects of the project : four SME specialized in GNSS receivers, GNSS-R technology, operational applications and dissemination, two labs for RPAS and GNSS-R technology. An advisory board composed of agronomy and environment specialists as well as end users will complete the skills of the consortium.

European agriculture is facing numerous challenges such as population growth, climate change, resource shortages or increased competition. Besides, the area of land available for agriculture is declining, rural areas become depopulated and farming population is aging. Today’s challenge is to produce “more with less”. Greenhouses protect crops from adverse weather conditions allowing year-round production. Integrated crop management approaches provide better control over pests and diseases. However, the intensification of greenhouse crop production creates favorable conditions for devastating infestation that can cost a 25% of the potential income. Greenhouse crop production is growing throughout the world, generating 46,377€/ha across Europe. GreenPatrol aims at developing an innovative and efficient robotic solution for Integrated Pest Management in crops, which has the ability to navigate inside greenhouses while performing early pest detection and control tasks in an autonomous way. Main developments will be focused on: - Precise positioning to provide accurate and detailed pest maps in greenhouses (light indoor environments) - Perception with visual sensing for on-line pest detection, including reasoning mechanisms for efficient action selection - Strategies for manipulation and motion planning based on pest monitoring feedback. Galileo capabilities are considered a fundamental technology for the proposed solution as it provides better performance against the multipath and signal degradation present in greenhouses. GreenPatrol will achieve a remarkable reduction of production losses and chemicals usage, as well as an increase in quality and competitiveness, leading to more sustainable farming and enhanced food safety and soil and water protection. The project includes a validation stage where the prototype will be tested in real environment to reach TRL7. GreenPatrol will be commercially exploited. Its business plan shows profits starting in year 3.