Intelligent Systems and Their Applications in Agriculture

Dear Colleagues,

At present, we are witnessing a massive increase in the computing power of electronic components, miniaturization of sensors, a reduction in the energy consumption of computing elements, and finally, an expansion of the possibility of interconnecting them into complicated communication networks. Simultaneously, acquisition costs are reduced to a tolerable limit, which positively affects the payback period of financial investments. This has enabled research and development teams to develop new, so-called physical–cybernetic systems, which offer end-users wholly new and hitherto unknown possibilities. These technological advances are so significant that the changes are referred to as the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The technologies mentioned above have already been successfully introduced in industry, and they have been in use already for a long time. Agriculture is much more conservative when it comes to new technologies because it does not generate such high profits. Therefore, new technologies are usually introduced in agriculture with some delay behind the industry.

Additionally, introducing physical–cybernetic systems into agriculture is significantly more complicated compared to industrial applications. The technologies in use in the industry work almost exclusively with inanimate objects or with well-conditioned data sets, thanks to which it is possible to algorithmize processes easily. In contrast, complex biological and physical input determinants, such as animals, plants, and weather influences, enter decision-making processes in agriculture, putting much higher demands on the developed system. Intelligent systems, which will find use in agriculture, must therefore be at a higher level than industrial ones. They represent an exciting challenge for research and development teams.

Without doubt, agriculture stands on the threshold of a new era of physical–cybernetic systems. Soon, intelligent systems and their applications will significantly change the way we approach growing crops, livestock farming, landscape management, and technologies. They will even affect our society, mainly social relations.

In this topical Special Issue, we would like to collect reviews and original research papers dealing with research and development of intelligent systems and their application in agriculture. The Special Issue covers almost all areas of agriculture, such as livestock farming, growing crops, technologies, landscape management, etc. Moreover, it includes topics in similar fields such as robotics, automatization, electronics, mechatronics, informatics or artificial intelligence. Therefore, papers focused on related methods such as machine learning, neural networks, machine vision, image processing, big data, IoT, remote sensing, sensors, and many others are also welcome.

We would like to invite you to share with the broad audience of the journal AgriEngineering your experience in the research and development of intelligent systems and their testing in laboratories and application directly in farms. Papers presented in this Special Issue can build on the number of other publications published in this field. Your publications will enlarge the knowledge and skills of humankind in this so crucial area of agriculture.

Prof. Dr. Petr Bartoš
Dr. Lubos Smutny
Guest Editors

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• Intelligent systems in agriculture
• Smart agriculture
• Agriculture 4.0
• Physical–cybernetic systems
• Artificial intelligence
• Neural networks
• Machine learning
• Machine vision
• Livestock farming
• Growing crops
• Landscape management
• IoT
• Big data
• Remote sensing
• Drones
• Agricultural engineering
• Technologies
• Sensors