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TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKDOHAA new research project will be launched by Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q), a Qatar Foundation (QF) partner university, to optimise the operations of greenhouses in Qatar. The Qatar National Research Fund is funding the project through the National Priorities Research Program (QNRF).Gianni Di Caro, the lead principal investigator, is an associate teaching professor of computer science at CMU-Q. Di Caro, an expert in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, will use machine learning (ML) to coordinate a fleet of mobile robots to collect visual data from Qatar greenhouse plants autonomously. The team will also use AI and machine learning to create predictive models of the crop’s development status, quality, health, and expected yield.Di Caro said, “This research will empower the management of greenhouses with advanced tools so they precisely know what’s going on and what will happen in crop’s development.”The robots will be equipped with RGB and multi-spectral cameras that will continuously monitor each plant and even each individual fruit. “By processing this visual data using AI, we can detect the presence of disease or pests, monitor plant development, and eventually optimize the conditions for growth and harvesting,” said Di Caro. The project will face several challenges, including programming the robots to look around leaves or other occlusions in order to photograph the fruit on the plant, detecting and counting the fruits, and developing predictive models for crop development. In addition, the system will generate a large amount of visual data. Di Caro and his colleagues will use machine learning to detect visual anomalies that indicate a plant’s health.For this project, CMU-Q will collaborate with researchers from three other institutions: Ahmed Moustafa of Qatar’s Al Sulaiteen Agricultural Research, Study, and Training Center, Klaas Dijkstra of the Netherlands’ NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, and Antonio Ferrante of Universita Degli Studi di Milano.Di Caro hopes that this research will aid Qatar’s agriculture sector, which has seen rapid growth since 2017. “This project has a wide range of potential applications, from improving crop health to informing consumers about the origin and quality of the food they buy,” he said.“We titled this project Greenhouse 5.0. If you think of 4.0 technology as a big step forward in innovation generation, this project is the step after that. We hope to integrate technologies, using artificial intelligence and automation together to make a real impact toward Qatar’s food sustainability.”Undergraduate programs at CMU-Q include biological sciences, business administration, computer science, and information systems.
