Computer Scientist Develops Smart App for Growers

by Tim Hearden,   Capital Press

A digital application called SmartFarm, developed by University of California, Santa Barbara professor Chandra Krintz, aims to help growers monitor real-time field conditions and weather patterns.

Krintz says the phone or tablet app collects data from small sensors around individual plants, providing growers valuable information about soil health and irrigation needs. SmartFarm then compiles the data with weather forecasts to create a complete environmental profile and predict when growers need to take action to prevent damage from frost or other weather conditions.

Krintz’s team currently is testing the system on an experimental farm in Santa Barbara and collaborating with about 20 growers throughout the state. Krintz notes SmartFarm technology is provided free to growers and the required hardware will be inexpensive, while by the end of the year the software will be available online for people to try. Krintz says the addition of data analytics to agricultural strategies can solve many of the problems faced by growers.

“We have to produce enough food to feed 9 billion people by 2050, and 7 billion people today,” she notes. “We think automation and computing can really simplify what farmers do today.”  Read the report.

DCL:  If you think about it SmartFarm is a CEP processor that takes input from multiple types of sources, from small local sensors to global weather predictors, and abstracts those events to higher level environmental events to enable decision making. This is a classical application of CEP.