Digital Innovation Farm

Project Overview

This project will demonstrate and evaluate a range of commercially available sensors to solve problems in conservation management and farming decision making. This will include some new sensor applications e.g. involving biodiversity data capture, detecting environmental impacts, and improving animal welfare on farms. We will compare network technologies such as 5G, Starlink, LoRaWAN, WIFI, and similar technologies. The intention is to demonstrate a wide range of different types of sensors, and sensing systems for appraisal within a limited time frame.

Scope

We will develop a series of connected data streams and sensors for demonstrating access to data and information from a sensor network. Our intention is to ingest data from existing sensors and devices across Harper Adams Future Farm.

These systems will empower farmers to demonstrate how they are meeting new environmental, carbon and biodiversity standards, and show the effectiveness of farm management and wildlife management interventions. They will also enable farmers to appraise economic land viability to inform land use management decisions and show how early disease and pest detection can help optimise pesticide applications to improve farming profitability.

These systems will be demonstrated with a flexible end-user dashboard system which will be easy to use, accessible to stakeholders and generate customised reports for modelling, visualisation, data led interventions, and government reporting.