1 min

Innovations Through Opportunities West

Smart Farm

Artechno Engineering is an engineering firm from de Lier, the Netherlands that has been active in horticulture and greenhouse technology for 38 years, specializing in the design and manufacturing of robotics, irrigation systems, seeding solutions, and harvest lines. We produce stand robotics, irrigation systems, seeding solutions, and harvest lines among our high-quality technical solutions. For this project, we redefined horticulture and vertical farming. Instead of transforming conventional horticulture into a vertical farming system, we designed our Smart Farm around the plant's needs. Our project aims to make the Smart Farm the first autonomous, high-tech, vertical cultivation system with an integrated smart Plant Happiness Monitoring System ready for market launch. Unfortunately, the Smart Farm construction, testing, and demonstration were delayed due to the COVID-19 crisis.

The Smart Farm enables highly efficient crop production in a scalable and environmentally friendly way. The Smart Farm is a completely automated vertical farming system and is the first fully automated vertical farming system in the world. This means that from sowing to harvest, manual intervention is not required. A Plant Happiness Monitoring system collects data on plant growth and crop development with IoT (Internet of Things) sensors and cameras. There is genuine interest in the system from the market, from the western part of the country, the rest of the Netherlands, and internationally. This is backed by several Letters of Support for this project.

The project ties in with the transition to greening by bringing innovation to the market that allows horticultural production to be more sustainable without using crop protection products and even establishing a 95% reduction in water consumption.

The project relates to the core of the Digitalization agenda and the key technologies Artificial Intelligence & Smart Industry and the High Tech to Feed the World agenda and also to the focus on "Smart and resource-efficient horticulture" through the cross-over innovation that lies at the intersection of horticulture, digitalization, and robotics, RIS3 WEST 2021-2027 and the South Holland Economy 2019-2022 program.

Duration July 7, 2020, through December, 2023