Feeding the growing global population requires an annual increase in food production. This requirement suggests an increase in the use of pesticides, which represents an unsustainable chemical load for the environment. To reduce pesticide input and preserve the environment while maintaining the necessary level of food production, the efficiency of relevant processes must be drastically improved. robotic systems for effective weed and pest control aimed at diminishing the use of agricultural chemical inputs, increasing crop quality and improving the health and safety of production operators. To achieve this overall objective, a fleet of heterogeneous ground and aerial robots was developed and equipped with innovative sensors, enhanced endeffectors and improved decision control algorithms to cover a large variety of agricultural situations. This article describes the scientific and technical objectives, challenges and outcomes achieved in three common crops.

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Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are being increasingly used for the spraying of pesticides for crop protection in complex geographic terrains that are not easily accessible by operators. This experiment was conducted to investigate the sprayer performance of a commercial UAV, equipped with different types of nozzles, and compare this new technology with the sprayers usually used on small size mountain vineyards (i.e. a knapsack sprayer and a sprayer gun). Field tests were conducted in a small high slope terraced vineyard. The operative parameters of the sprayers were calculated. Data on droplet coverage, density and size were collected by using water sensitive papers attached with clips to the leaves and analysed. The results showed that the working capacity of the UAV was 2-fold that of the sprayer gun 1.6-fold that of the knapsack sprayer. Droplet coverage, density and size were variable and affected by the position of the targets (water sensitive papers) and the type of sprayer used.

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This study shows a new methodological proposal for wine farm management, as a result of the progressive development of the technological innovations and their adoption. The study was carried out in Italy involving farmers, workers, or owners of wine farms who are progressively introducing or using precision agriculture technologies on their farm. The methodology proposed was divided in four stages (1. understanding the changes in action; 2. identifying the added value of Smart Farming processes; 3. verifying the reliability of new technologies; 4. adjusting production processes) that can be applied at different levels in vine farms to make the adoption of precision agriculture techniques and technologies harmonious and profitable. Data collection was carried out using a participant-observer method in brainstorming sessions, where the authors reflected on the significance of technology adoption means and how to put them in practice, and interviews, questionnaire surveys, diaries, and observations. Moreover, project activities and reports provided auxiliary data. The findings highlighted the issues of a sector which, although with broad investment and finance options, lacks a structure of human, territorial, and organizational resources for the successful adoption of technological innovations. The work represents a basis for the future development of models for strategic scenario planning and risk assessments for farmers, policymakers, and scientists.

In precision viticulture, the intra-field spatial variability characterization is a crucial step to efficiently use natural resources by lowering the environmental impact. In recent years, technologies such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Mobile Laser Scanners (MLS), multispectral sensors, Mobile Apps (MA) and Structure from Motion (SfM) techniques enabled the possibility to characterize this variability with low efforts. The study aims to evaluate, compare and cross-validate the potentiality and the limits of several tools (UAV, MA, MLS) to assess the vine canopy size parameters (thickness, height, volume) by processing 3D point clouds. Three trials were carried out to test the different tools in a vineyard located in the Chianti Classico area (Tuscany, Italy). Each test was made of a UAV flight, an MLS scanning over the vineyard and a MA acquisition over 48 geo-referenced vines. The Leaf Area Index (LAI) were also assessed and taken as reference value. The results showed that the analyzed tools were able to correctly discriminate between zones with different canopy size characteristics. In particular, the R2 between the canopy volumes acquired with the different tools was higher than 0.7, being the highest value of R2 = 0.78 with a RMSE = 0.057 m3 for the UAV vs. MLS comparison. The highest correlations were found between the height data, being the highest value of R2 = 0.86 with a RMSE = 0.105 m for the MA vs. MLS comparison. For the thickness data, the correlations were weaker, being the lowest value of R2 = 0.48 with a RMSE = 0.052 m for the UAV vs. MLS comparison. The correlation between the LAI and the canopy volumes was moderately strong for all the tools with the highest value of R2 = 0.74 for the LAI vs. V_MLS data and the lowest value of R2 = 0.69 for the LAI vs. V_UAV data.

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