Full autonomous control of a greenhouse lettuce production
The winners of the first stage of the Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge will be announced during a freely accessible webinar on 14 July. The first part of the 3rd edition of the Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge is held as an open Online Challenge. It aims at testing machine learning and computer vision skills of participants of the Artificial Intelligence community. During the webinar, the winners of the Online Challenge will be announced, the best teams will present their strategy and an expert panel will discuss with the future of Autonomous Greenhouses.
The Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge is an initiative of Wageningen University & Research (WUR) and Tencent. By organizing the challenge, they want to connect the world of artificial intelligence (AI) and food production, create more knowledge, make this knowledge publicly available and thus contribute to the worldwide efforts of making our food systems more sustainable.
Online Challenge
The first part of the 3rd edition of the Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge takes place as an open Online Challenge, aiming at testing machine learning and computer vision skills of AI experts of companies and start-ups, students and researchers form universities and research institutes. In the Online Challenge they are assessed by how they virtually grow lettuce and judge lettuce images in different growth stages.
The Online Challenge takes place during the whole month of June. More than 50 teams and 250 participants are registered.
In Part A – the computer vision challenge – teams must develop computer vision algorithms based on training images and must use the algorithm to detect plant traits (f.i. plant diameter, height, weight and leaf area) on unseen images. Pictures are provided by WUR and will be made publicly available after the Online Challenge.
In Part B – the machine learning challenge – teams must develop machine learning algorithms to autonomously control ventilation, heating, lighting etc. in a virtual greenhouse to stimulate the growth of a virtual crop and maximise the net profit. WUR provides access to a digital twin model of a lettuce greenhouse (simulator) as a gaming environment.
Webinar
On 14 July 14:00-15:30 h CET the Final Event of the Online Challenge will take place. During a webinar, the winners of the Online Challenge will be announced, the best teams will present their strategy and an expert panel will discuss with each other and other attendees the future of Autonomous Greenhouses. The webinar will be publicly broadcasted via the YouTube channel of the WUR Glasshouse Horticulture Business Unit:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXvW_h6puqtwIXqV0_N40Jg/live
More information on the Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge and the programme of 14 July can be found on www.autonomousgreenhouses.com.
Wageningen University & Research and Tencent
Wageningen University & Research (WUR) is ranked as the world’s best agricultural university and works, among other things, on autonomous greenhouses, climate control, crop modelling, the use of sensors, data, intelligence, computer vision and robotics. Tencent is the sixth largest publicly traded company worldwide. Its mission is to enhance the quality of human life through Internet services.
Together they want to connect the world of artificial intelligence (AI) and food production, create more knowledge, make this knowledge publicly available and thus contribute to the worldwide efforts of making our food systems more sustainable. The ever-growing world population gives rise to an increased demand for fresh and healthy food. Autonomous greenhouses and remote digital farming can help feed more people with vitamin and mineral rich produces, increase food security and produce more vegetables with fewer resources such as water and energy. The potential has been shown successfully in earlier editions of the Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge.
Additional sponsors
Additional sponsors of the Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge are Fluence by Osram, Gebr. Geers bv, Municipality of Lansingerland, Glastuinbouw Nederland, Hortiplan, Kas als Energiebron, LetsGrow, Ridder Climate Screens and Sigrow.
