Agriculture 4.0: From Precision Agriculture to Smart Agriculture

Dear Colleagues,

Agriculture 4.0, the natural evolution of precision agriculture, makes it possible to face these challenges by allowing an intelligent and controlled application of inputs (water, nutrients, pesticides, energy), optimized management of production from field to table, integration of different technologies in agriculture, etc. The use of software, applications, networks of sensors, all supported by Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, make data easily manageable and accessible. This allows to accurately provide and analyse information in real time, allowing the automation of agricultural production and decision-making processes. For example, at the current state of knowledge, typical consolidated technologies of precision agriculture allow farmers to program the variable distribution of inputs according to the spatial and temporal variability of crops. On the other hand, the possibilities offered by the latest generation technologies allow for an integrated communication between all the tools present in the farm with a high level data accessibility between the components of the supply chain: machines, equipment, farms, customers, dealers and institutions, etc. Therefore, the agriculture in the future will increasingly use sophisticated technologies such as robots, field sensors, aerial imagery, GPS technology, software completely interconnected by IoT networks allowing farms to be more profitable, efficient, safer and more environmentally friendly. Among the topics we highlight:

History of Precision Agriculture, Sensing Technology for Precision Farming (satellite, aerial, UAV, proximal sensing platforms, etc.), Data Processing and Utilization in Precision Agriculture, Image Processing, Control of Precision Agriculture Production, Big data analysis applied to precision agriculture, Intelligent Agricultural Machinery and Field Robots, Traceability Smart Agriculture, Precision Farming Economics.

Prof. Dr. Pasquale Catalano
Prof. Dr. Antonia Tamborrino
Guest Editors

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