Monicap
Permanent Monitoring of Agricultural Crops
Funding Programme
Research project co-funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research, as part of the European Union’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, for the “development of precision agriculture and sustainable agriculture aimed at increasing productivity and industrial sustainability.”
Coordinator
Intecs S.p.A
Partners
Italian Aerospace Research Centre (CIRA); Research Consortium on Sustainable Development Technologies – Hypatia; University of Pisa – Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment (DISAA-a).
Description
MONICAP is a solution for the systematic monitoring of agricultural areas over time, capable of acquiring thermal, multispectral and hyperspectral images at different times of the day, such as morning, midday and evening.
It provides data and services for precision agriculture by applying complex workflows for the processing of heterogeneous data through Artificial Intelligence models. The solution is based on the use of a tethered aerostatic system that is energy-independent and characterized by a higher payload capacity, enabling it to carry and operate payloads with different sensor configurations.
MONICAP aims to help farmers carry out irrigation and fertilization procedures in a selective and targeted way, both in terms of the area of interest and the time periods in which the action is performed. This will contribute to significant economic benefits by minimizing the waste of water resources and drastically reducing pollution through a decrease in the amount of chemical fertilizers used.
An important field of application for precision agriculture is the wine-growing sector, where it is essential to provide solutions capable of rapidly managing phytosanitary, nutritional and water-related issues.
To assess the health status of the monitored crops, in addition to remotely sensed images, the system also uses measurements collected by in-field sensors developed within the project, as well as meteorological and Earth observation data.