Innovative methods and tools for the agro-ecological transition

Our research activities focus on the development of innovative technological building blocks for agro-ecology, with work on:

Approaches for new, more efficient agricultural equipment required by the agro-ecological transition

• Matching agro-equipment and agroecological practices to the needs of farmers and agroecologists
• Eco-design of intelligent agro-equipment

Assessing machine/implement/soil interactions in order to preserve and limit soil compaction

• Mobility solutions to minimise the effects on the soil
• Tools and methods for modelling machine/tool/soil interactions (physical tests, indicators, metrics, evaluation methods, solutions)
• Quality of cultivation operations carried out by agricultural equipment (precision of action, etc.).

Environmental assessment of agricultural equipment and innovative agro-ecological practices (and their energy efficiency)

• Development of measurement protocols and resources to characterise various operations (spreading, sowing, weeding) and assess the safety and performance of robots, using the technological resources of the l’AgroTechnoPôle
• Methodological developments in Life Cycle Assessment to evaluate their environmental and energy performance
• Developments in data science applied to agricultural equipment.

Some publications:

Life cycle inventory data of agricultural tractors, Marilys Pradel, Data in Brief, 2023, 48, pp.109174. ⟨10.1016/j.dib.2023.109174⟩, hal-04147757, DOI : 10.1016/j.dib.2023.109174

Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of intra-row and inter-row weeding practices using autonomous robot systems in French vineyards, Marilys Pradel, Mikaël de Fays, Cédric Seguineau. Science of the Total Environment, 2022, 838 (3), pp.156441. ⟨10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.156441⟩, hal-04154620

On the Design of the Agri-Food Competition for Robot Evaluation (ACRE), R. Bertoglio, M. Boulet, G. Fontana, Matteo Matteucci, D. Facchinetti, M. Berducat, D. Boffety. IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions, ICARSC 2021Open AccessPages 161 - 16628 April 2021 Article number 94297922021 IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions, ICARSC 2021

A virtual spreader to overcome experimental limits: Example of use to deepen the meaning of the transverse coefficient of variation, Emmanuel Piron, Tien-Thinh Le, Denis Miclet, Lionel Léveillé, Gwennvel Arribard, Sylvain Villette, 4th SIMA AgriTech Day Axema, Oct 2021, Nantes, France. pp.105-110, hal-03576892