Using artificial intelligence to collect agricultural data

ANR OCOD project combines intelligent sensors, drones and optimization for data collection in constrained natural environments

Led by INRAE and involving FEMTO-ST, LPCA and Inria-FUN, this €580k project (2025-2029) began on January 1, 2025, with an official launch on February 6 at INRAE's Clermont Ferrand site.

It aims to optimize the collection of agricultural data in difficult-to-access natural environments using a combination of intelligent wireless sensors and drones. These data will be used to facilitate early detection of water stress or disease, and limit the use of inputs (fertilizers).

FEMTO-ST's work on the ANR OCOD project will focus mainly on optimizing the flight plans of drones so that they can collect aerial images, temperature and humidity data, and communicate with sensors on the ground, without having to stop directly above each sensor.

The aim will also be to optimize the structure of the sensor network, taking into account constraints such as energy consumption.

Karine Deschinkel, along with Mourad Hakem and Jean-Claude Charr from her team, will address these 2 emerging challenges and supervise a thesis on the subject starting in September 2025. They will propose innovative approaches based on recent optimization heuristics and learning techniques, with a full-scale test planned on INRAE's Montoldre experimental site.

Contact : Karine Deschinkel

March 8, International Women's Day
"Freedom, like Science, and Women's Rights, are fundamental issues for Humanity."

FEMTO-ST chooses to display on this day of March 8 (also charged with the serious news of the war in Ukraine), its commitment to each of these three issues.
Read more
First experimental observation of the roton effect in metamaterials
Experiments conducted jointly by FEMTO-ST and KIT demonstrate the control of forward and backward wave propagation by adjusting the frequency.
Read more
FEMTO-ST partner of the Joint Technology Unit "CAPPLAI"
For the development of sensors to control and optimize the performance of dairy processes.
Read more
Happy new year 2022 !
The Management and all the members of FEMTO-ST wish you a year 2022 full of personal and professional satisfactions
Read more
Safa MERAGHNI receives the PEPITE prize in the regional "Female Initiative " competition
Her project is to create a "Smart Medical Assistant" which is an intelligent medical assistance device on a smartphone designed to help doctors in their diagnosis.
Read more
IEEE ICEMS Conference : Best paper award
Researchers from SHARPAC team/ENERGY department of FEMTO-ST institute received the Best Paper Award at the IEEE International Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems for their work on the influence of electrical conductivity on eddy-current losses in electrical machines.
Read more
Joint laboratories CNRS-Companies 2021
FEMTO-ST and AUREA Technology honored at the LAB COM CNRS event in Paris on November 29 and 30
Read more
Nanorobotics of the future: FEMTO-ST enters the 4th dimension
For the first time, nanorobotic structures have been realized by folding in 3 dimensions a multilayer membrane and proposing their actuation by an electro-thermo mechanical principle.
Read more
Chaos and rogue waves in a supercontinuum laser
In collaboration with the Universities of Tampere, Aston and ICB laboratory, FEMTO-ST researchers have made significant headway in the ongoing effort to understand the ultrafast chaotic nature of lasers, elucidating for the first time their noise-like pulse operation.
Read more
Julio Andrés Iglesias Martínez receives the Best Student Award at IEEE Ultrasonic Symposium
His work consists in achieving three-dimensional phononic crystals at the micro-scale with record band-gap width.
Read more