A look at some of the I-FARM’s progress in 2023-24:

Team members installed private wireless (CBRS-Citizens Broadband Radio Service), LoRa, and satellite connectivity by Starlink. These technologies are crucial to the success of any digital agriculture application and cover a span from low-bandwidth connectivity options for small sensors to high-bandwidth options for cameras, robots, and drones.
The team also created a prototype MyFarm application to integrate satellite imagery and sensor data from the farm.
I-FARM had three demonstration events during the past year, drawing in approximately 40 participants — including an event in which a dozen young Brazilian farmers visited the testbed.

A look at some of the I-FARM’s progress under the six research thrusts:

Researchers set up eight soil moisture stations as well as conventional and digital camera systems, and collected airborne hyperspectral and drone images during the 2022 growing season.
They have developed and employed a new method (using downward viewing cameras mounted above the canopy) to monitor leaf (LAI) and green leaf (GAI) area indexes.
Scientists and an industry partner redesigned a cost-effective cover cropping robot, improving camera vision and algorithms to make planting accurate and efficient; those algorithms were validated in the field as the team planted 40 acres (38 in cereal rye and 2 in oats) at 35-40 lbs per acre using the robots.
Researchers continue to explore better methods for long-rage internet connectivity and data transfer options for farms and the devices there.
Beef and dairy cattle have been studied via a variety of surveillance and depth cameras, and the data will be used to predict animal behavior as they are incorporated onto the 80-acre testbed farm.
Team members continue to integrate TerraSentia field rover and other drones into the research with an eye on commercial farming, and they intend to survey farmers on nitrogen returns and variable rate technology during Year 2 of the project.
A team has developed a statistical model to link three types of nitrogen applications to corn yields and profits for different soil types, using 30-year soil data and 15-year averaged weather data.
I-FARM has had successful technology demonstrations for 100+ visitors from agriculture, industry, government, and academia on Nov. 8 and demonstrated for 72 attendees at a University property in Ewing, Ill. The team has participated in nine regional trade shows and conferences, reaching 475 attendees.