WUR is working on Digital Twins for tomatoes, food and farming
Added on 29 January 2020
WUR has searched for Digital Twin projects that can achieve major scientific and social breakthroughs in the Wageningen domains. Collaboration is a high priority for this investment programme, also because knowledge from different disciplines is essential for a successful Digital Twin.
Three subjects were chosen, on which groups of researchers from very diverse disciplines will work in the coming three years. Around 1.2m euros per project has been made available by WUR.
Read more about the three projects below:
Virtual tomato crops
Jochem Evers and his team are developing a digital twin of a tomato crop in a greenhouse: a 3D simulation model that is fed in real-time with sensor information from a real greenhouse. These constant updates make this digital twin more advanced than the existing simulation models. The interactions between the characteristics of the crop (the variety), the environmental factors and crop management are all simulated in the virtual crop. Because the model is linked to a real tomato crop in a greenhouse, it becomes possible to refine predictions more and more and thus make better choices for the real crop.
dr. JB (Jochem) Evers
Contact person Virtual tomato crops
Me, my diet and I
Lydia Afman and her multidisciplinary team are building a personalised digital twin to predict the rise in blood sugar (glucose), but especially the rise in blood fat (triglyceride) in the blood after a meal. Both are indicators of the risk of cardiovascular disease. There are no sensors for monitoring blood fat like there are for glucose - WUR has already done a lot of research into the latter. Based on already collected blood fat data from 500 overweight middle-aged people, the team will work together with researchers with knowledge of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create a digital model. The predictive capacity of this digital twin will be tested in a human study and then improved.
dr.ir. LA (Lydia) Afman
Contact person Me, My diet and I
Digital Future Farm
Thomas Been and his team are working on a digital twin that displays the existing nitrogen cycle on an arable or dairy farm and with which researchers and farmers can determine how to close the nitrogen cycle as much as possible. A little less abstract: the required models are linked and provided with company data, sensor data, weather data and other observations of the company.
dr. TH (Thomas) Been
Contact person Digital Future Farm
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Photo Courtesy of Wageningen University & Research
Source: Wageningen University & Research
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