GSS EU Science Funding Gateway

The selected project will develop reference testing and experimentation facilities with a focus on full integration, testing, validation, demonstration, and where appropriate certification, of advanced AI-based and AI-powered robotics technologies for the agri-food sector. The project may cover the whole value chain of the agri-food sector, but should only cover at least agriculture. Where appropriate demonstration can be done in connection with a specialised demonstration facility, several sub-sector and production types can be considered as well as various variables as it regards crop-livestock types/soils/climatic and environmental conditions/farm structure. The facilities may include a range of use cases in different fields such as – but not limited to – precision weeding/fertilisation/seeding, sensor data management, multifunctional autonomous robotics applications (and its long-time continuous use), and/or in different sub-sectors, such as arable farming, greenhouses, livestock/chicken management. Use cases may also be developed along different topics, such as collaborative robotics, circular economy or reduced food loss/waste. The use-cases offered should be end-user driven. This will be ensured by closely involving the end-users, e.g. farmers. Smaller farms and businesses should be involved in particular to ensure affordability of AI solutions.

The infrastructure established within this activity will set-up or build on physical and digital resources, which will be available to the facilities users for the testing and experimentation of their hardware and software solutions. These physical and digital resources include high-power-computing, labs, cloud computing, connectivity technologies such as 5G, trusted and secured access to sets of (labelled) high quality data, and AI toolkit solutions. Professional services support in areas such as business, compliance and verification/certification, including for a possible requirement from the future regulatory framework for AI, is also provided directly or via the EDIHs.