This is the last issue of the Flourish newsletter reporting the latest project progress,

results, events and activities undertaken within the precision agriculture domain.

This issue is also available on our project website: http://flourish-project.eu/

Welcome to the third issue of the Flourish Newsletter!

In this issue you will find a general description of the

Flourish project, all the activities related to the dissemi-

nation of the main Flourish progresses and results and

finally all the opportunities for project partners and rele-

vant stakeholders to exchange knowledge, experiences

and technologies within the consortium or with external

audience.

Newsletter contents Sections

Flourish project

Keep informed

Get together

Aerial Data Collection and Analysis and Automated Ground Intervention for Precision Farming

The Flourish project is funded by the European Community's Horizon 2020 Programme under grant agreement no 644227-

Flourish and by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) under contract number 15.0029

ISSUE#3 August 2018

Co-funded by the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union

ISSUE#3

http://flourish-project.eu/

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Flourish is a three-year project on precision farming started on

March 2015 and funded by the European Community Horizon

2020 Programme under grant agreement no 644227 and from

the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Inno-

vation (SERI) under contract number 15.0029.

The FLOURISH project is carried out by a consortium made

up of seven partners from four European countries

(Switzerland, Germany, France and Italy), with highly special-

ized know-how ranging from robot design to crop manage-

ment. Read more

Flourish project

Flouri sh newsletter ISSUE#3 Section #1—The Flourish project

The Flourish Project

This section provides an introduction to the Flourish

project and presents its main goals. The Flourish team

is currently carrying out the last experimentations and

tests on two main crops (sugar beet and sunflower) in

order to design an efficient and integrated robotic sys-

tem for precision farming.

Summary

SECTION #1

Flourish project

Project goals

Project goals The aim of the Flourish project is to develop a robotic agriculture system that helps increasing

yields to reach the growing food demand and, at the same time, to reduce the amount of applied

agro-chemicals pesticides to meet the future pesticide usage requirements of a sustainable and

safe food production on the field. Furthermore, the Flourish solutions are expected to contribute

to more efficient use of human resources in crop development and to reduce farms emissions.

Read more on Flourish Project on the newsletter 1st Issue

http://www.flourish-project.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/Press_material/Flourish_Newsletter.pdf

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Keep informed!

Flourish results are disseminated towards several

stakeholders such as scientific experts, agriculture op-

erators and organizations, business sector and policy

makers.

This section presents the Flourish main dissemination

channels and events and the latest news related to the

project.

Summary

SECTION #2

Latest news

Social media

Flourish demo

Presentations

Publications

Flouri sh newsletter ISSUE#3 Section #2—Keep informed

Latest news

A project factsheet reporting the main Flourish results has been

published on the Community Research and Development Infor-

mation Service (CORDIS) webpage on May 2018. CORDIS is

the European Commission's primary public repository and portal

to disseminate information on all EU-funded research projects

and their results. Read the Flourish factsheet on Cordis

Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS)

A YouTube channel, a Facebook and a Twitter account contribute to

Flourish results dissemination. Videos, activities and news on the project

are available on these media.

Moreover a Flourish project space is available on the scientific social net-

working site “ResearchGate”. The space contains a description of the pro-

ject, project log, references, and a space for questions. This allows inter-

ested people to follow the project and to stay up to date, especially with

respect to scientific achievements within the project.

Social media

https://cordis.europa.eu/result/rcn/229078_en.htmlhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_1Jm_IpTwDJlTPlcUVCNywhttps://www.facebook.com/flourishproject/https://twitter.com/flourishrobotshttps://www.researchgate.net/project/Flourish-Aerial-Data-Collection-and-Analysis-and-Automated-Ground-Intervention-for-Precision-Farming

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FLOURISH DEMO EVENTS

Overall the Demo involved about 300 parti-

cipants including researchers/experts wor-

king in precision agriculture and robotics,

public administration representatives, po-

tential end-users of the developed technolo-

gies, students and other stakeholders.

Read more

Flourish Demo

The goal of this evaluation, organized by UNIROMA1, is to provide a sy-

stematic evaluation of the performance of small UAVs (multi-copters) by

means of tests assessing the UAVs’ capability to generate a 3D map of a

field and the capability to find and inspect a specific type of object from a

close proximity. Read more

This workshop provided a forum for scientific dissemination of the results achieved by Flourish and crea-

ted an exchange opportunity with researchers working on the related technical challenges. Read more

Workshop on Small UAVs for Precision Agriculture

The latest research developments in the sector

have been presented by researchers from the

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Zu-

rich, several Italian research bodies and from

the National Institute of Standards and Techno-

logy (U.S.A). At the end of the event a panel

discussion on the challenges for robotics re-

search in precision agriculture has been orga-

nized.

Performance Evaluation for Small UAVs in Precision Agriculture

This event aimed to provide a systematic evaluation of the perfor-

mance of small UAVs (multi-copters) by means of tests assessing the

UAVs’ capability to generate a 3D map of a field and the capability to

find and inspect a specific object from a close proximity. The tests

have been organized following the tools and methodologies develo-

ped by international standardization bodies (National Institute of

Standards and Technology -NIST). Read more

Flouri sh newsletter ISSUE#3 Section #2—The Flourish project

In May 2018 ASSAM, in collaboration with

Flourish partners, organized the event “Flourish-

Demo” in the Marche Region (Italy), to promote

the precision farming theme and to publicly pre-

sent the Flourish progress. Several meetings on

specific themes and a field demo have been

scheduled to fill the gap between research and

the professional areas and to discuss about the

state of the art of technologies and innovations

developed within the sector so far.

http://flourish-project.eu/demo/http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/~labrococo/uav_eval_pa/http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/~labrococo/uav4pa/http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/~labrococo/uav_eval_pa/

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Presentation of the Flourish project and field demonstrations

Field demonstrations have been performed

to show the functionalities of the Flourish

robotic system and the collaboration capabi-

lities between its components.

This event has been conceived to introduce the precision

farming theme and the Flourish system to a large audi-

ence (about 100 participants).

Agricultural and engineering academics, economists and

a representatives of Italian Civil Aviation Authority pre-

sented an overview on precision farming, gave inputs to

discuss about the economic sustainability of this sector

and illustrated some regulatory aspects for UAVs flight in

Italy. The Flourish team presented the project and its po-

tential application in the precision farming sector.

Flourish end-user evaluation

The main goal of this event was to collect feedbacks from

potential end-users of Flourish technologies and to provide

inputs for a Flourish system validation. The evaluating panel

was an heterogeneous group made up of 17 professionals,

public officers, researchers, employee of the Italian Ministeri-

al experimental field testing centres, representatives of Multi-

national chemical product traders and of crop storage com-

panies, high-school teachers and students.

After a short general introduction on precision farming technolo-

gies, partners presented the main Flourish results. Field demon-

strations were performed also during this event to allow end-users

to assess the Flourish system operation in real field conditions.

The potential applicability of the Flourish robotic system in the cur-

rent European precision farming was discussed as well.

Farm technicians, engineers academics

and Flourish partners presented to a group

of 140 students and teachers from agricul-

tural and technical secondary schools so-

me applications of precision farming tech-

nologies and research activities linked to

the sector and the Flourish project.

Flouri sh newsletter ISSUE#3 Section #2—Keep informed

Workshops with students

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Flouri sh newsletter ISSUE#3 Section #2—Keep informed

UBN and ETHZ contributed to the organization of this workshop brin-

ging together researchers and practitioners to discuss advances in

robotics applications and their intersection with agricultural practices.

The workshop explored the impact of these advances on agricultural

practices and robotics applications in the crop and environment mana-

ging. Read more

ICRA 2018 - Workshop for Robotic Vision and Action in Agriculture

In the last months the Flourish project has been presented at numerous workshops: e.g. the

“Mobile Robotics in Uneven Environment” workshop, the workshop for Image analysis in Agricul-

ture Computer-Bildanalyse in der Landwirtschaft 2018 and ICRA 2018.

Presentations

FLOURISH DEMO FOLLOW UP

RAI3 TV reports

The goal of this evaluation, organized by UNIROMA1, is to provide a sy-

stematic evaluation of the performance of small UAVs (multi-copters) by

means of tests assessing the UAVs’ capability to generate a 3D map of a

field and the capability to find and inspect a specific type of object from a

close proximity. Read more

The RAI3 regional news programme of the Italian public

broadcasting company shot two TV reports during the

“Presentation of the Flourish project and field demonstra-

tions” event of the Flourish Demo. The reports were aired

on the programme "Buon Giorno Regione” and one of

them was re-transmitted on the Regional TV newscast.

Watch the video (minute 11:28-13:42 and 23:31-27:46)

ASSAM and Regione Marche videos

ASSAM produced a 5’ video shortly introducing the

Flourish project and then narrating the activities carried

out during the Flourish Demo. Watch the “Flourish de-

mo” video

A long article presenting the main contents of the Flourish Demo event has

been published on the Italian newspaper "Pianeta PSR" dealing topics linked

to the Rural Development Plan (read article).

Article on “Pianeta PSR”

A further video presenting the Flourish project has been

published as a result of a press conference organized at

the Marche Region offices (Italy) to promote and invite

people to the Flourish demo. Watch the video

https://research.qut.edu.au/digital-agriculture/projects/icra-2018-workshop-on-robotic-vision-and-action-in-agriculture/http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/~labrococo/uav_eval_pa/http://www.rainews.it/dl/rainews/TGR/multimedia/ContentItem-965af3ec-8b9d-4548-bcd9-4b8e322bb241.htmlhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=CU_vALz8UAAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=CU_vALz8UAAhttp://www.pianetapsr.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeBLOB.php/L/IT/IDPagina/2021https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr1VDoDhOiI

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A public event with ETH President Lino Guzzella, Federal

council Schneider-Ammann and Achim Walter was organized

by the ETH Studio AgroFood, ETH Global, and the World Food

System Center. The presentations were followed up by a mod-

erated panel discussion.

ETHZ public event on Smart Farming

Moreover several talks on Flourish were held in various context: e.g. Invited Talk about New

Technologies for Sustainable Crop Production at the Universitätsgessellschaft Bonn, Keynote

Talk at the British Machine Vision Association Meeting in London, talks in three different German

cities about UAV-based detection of PA-Weeds in peppermint.

Along with these latter events a demo of the Flourish classification system performed in Darm-

stadt (DE). The Flourish team also intervened at the 14th International Conference on Precision

Agriculture and to the ESA 2018 Congress.

Finally Flourish results have been presented at the Live

Demo at Campus Klein-Altendorf of the Bonn University for

the German newspaper “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, at

an In-house presentation for Toyota Research Institute and

at an ETHZ public event on Smart Farming.

Flouri sh newsletter ISSUE#3 Section #2—Keep informed

During the project time lapse, the Flourish team produced around 50 scientific papers, many of

them have been published in two of the most prestigious conferences of the robotic research sec-

tor: ICRA (International Conference on Robotics and Automation) and IROS (International confer-

ence on RObotic Systems).

Publications

Please find the list of Flourish scientific publications here

In the last semester further informative articles on Bonirob were published

on the Newspaper "Freiburger Wochenbericht" and Agriculture magazin

"top agrar" (read article).

http://flourish-project.eu/documents/https://www.topagrar.com/archiv/2-Mit-Drohne-plus-Roboter-die-Unkraeuter-ausschalten-3749504.html

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During the event the different modules for weed detection, tracking and spraying were success-

fully tested and ran simultaneously on real field conditions (on sugar beet and sunflower crops).

UAV-UGV coordinated missions were performed as well.

Get together!

This section presents the main opportunities for project

partners to exchange knowledge and experiences

each other and the scheduled events linked to the

Flourish theme.

Summary

SECTION #3

Meetings

Next events

Meetings

Flouri sh newsletter ISSUE#3 Section #3—Get together!

From the beginning of the project 5 integration weeks have

been organized to ensure integration of all the individual

modules to a working subsystem. Moreover 2 review meet-

ings have been organized to explain to the EC Project Of-

ficer and to external experts assisting the EC in the project

assessment the work carried out by partners and progress

achieved so far.

The 5th

integration (May 2018) week has been embedded

within the Flourish Demo event. The Flourish Demo has also

been an intense interdisciplinary collaboration session for

partners, which could work together to the tuning of the ro-

botic system at the final stage of the project.

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The last Flourish integration week is planned for the period 12-18 September 2018 in Eschikon

(CH) just before the final review meeting that is scheduled on the 19th of September.

Next events

Flouri sh newsletter ISSUE#3 Section #3—Get together!

ETHZ organized a IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters

(RA-L) special issue on “Precision Agricultural Robotics and

Autonomous Farming Technologies” with IROS2018 confe-

rence option. The Special Issue will be associated with the

2018 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Ro-

bots and Systems (IROS 2018, Spain) and accepted articles

will be presented at the conference.

Moreover the Flourish team will participate to the IROS

exhibition as one of EU funded-projects exhibitors.

IROS 2018 conference - Oct 2018

Selective spraying—Watch video

Autonomous navigation—Watch video UAV-UGV coordination—Watch video

ETHZ will present Flourish at the “Revolution in

food and biomass production” conference

(Germany) under the topic “Precision farming, ro-

botics, drones and Artificial Intelligence”

REFAB Conference - Oct 2018

Three videos resulted from the 5th

integration week work

have been published on the Flourish website. They deal

with the UGV autonomous navigation modes (off-field, in-

field and weeding), they show UGV weeds detection and

treatment with the spraying module and they illustrate the

steps of a UAV-UGV joint mission carried out on the field.

http://www.ieee-ras.org/publications/ra-l/special-issues/precision-agricultural-robotics-and-autonomous-farming-technologieshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=VVVlJj57RDEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=16&v=jy_VZIA7Rp0https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=14&v=KtvupkLl2Is

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The Flourish consortium, led by ETHZ, consists of Universities,

a leading technology supplier, a scientific research center and a

regional agency for agro-food sector services. Read more on

Flourish Consortium here!

Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zurich - Autonomous Sy-

stems Lab and Crop Science Lab

Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms Universität Bonn - Department for

Photogrammetry

Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg - Autonomous Intelligent Sy-

stems Lab

Robert Bosch GmbH

Georgia Tech - CNRS UMI 2958 -- DREAM Lab

Sapienza Università di Roma - Lab for Cooperative Cognitive Ro-

bots

ASSAM - Agency for Agro-food Sector Services of the Marche

Region

Flourish Consortium

http://flourish-project.eu/consortium/http://www.asl.ethz.ch/http://www.asl.ethz.ch/http://http/www.ipb.uni-bonn.de/http://http/www.ipb.uni-bonn.de/http://ais.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/http://ais.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/http://www.bosch.com/http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/~labrococo/?q=node/6http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/~labrococo/?q=node/6http://www.assam.marche.it/en/