A group of Mexican students and teachers won a 24-hour competition in the Netherlands. In it, the participants had to create an algorithm or set of operations and artificial intelligence instructions to autonomously manage a greenhouse, controlling its climate, lights, and fertirrigation.
The winners of the Autonomous Greenhouses Challenge livestreams 24-hour hackathon, which came from the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM), earned the right to move to the second phase of the competition and test their algorithm in a real environment.
The first phase of the competition was called Deep Greens and took place at Wageningen University. The next phase will take place from August 27 until early December in the Netherlands.
In the second phase, five teams will be given a 100 squared meter greenhouse to conduct intensive cultivation of cucumbers. The greenhouse must have the appropriate sensors to be operated by a remote computer.
The Mexican team is comprised of Aaron Velez Ramírez, of the Laboratory of Interdisciplinary Investigation of the National School of Superior Studies (ENES) Leon Unit, Julia Garcia Gonzalez, Laura Rosina Torres Ortega, and Uriel Perez Guerrero, who study Agro-economic Sciences.
They are working with engineers Zach Dwiel, Anna Bethke, Alexei Bastidas, ChinniKrishna Kothapalli and Mariano Phielipp, who are experts from Intel’s Artificial Intelligence division.
The goal of the Mexicans is to produce more with less resources, be it water or land, which they plan to achieve with the help of artificial intelligence.
They will do it by using a computer program that is capable of simulating thermodynamics, photosynthesis, respiration, growth, water use, relative humidity, and everything that happens inside a greenhouse.
Source: LNN