Irreo

Objectives of the Product

Irreo is a platform for precision irrigation that allows users to automatically and efficiently distribute the right amount of water to each sector of a cultivated field, only when needed, in three phases:

• monitoring the growth and health of crops and estimating their water
  requirements through satellite data analysis;
• planning optimal irrigation scheduling;
• irrigating automatically and managing irrigation plant remotely.

Customers and their Needs

Irreo aims at enabling growers to automate their irrigation systems in an intelligent and efficient way to mitigate drought problems caused by ongoing climate change, a factor that has made irrigation an increasingly delicate and complex process to manage. To cope with this, growers increasingly tend to use technological solutions that however present certain critical issues:

• soil moisture sensors are very expensive and provide only one-point
  data to make irrigation decisions, resulting in non-uniform production
  throughout the plot;
• growers spend time converting the provided irrigation advice into an
  actual irrigation planning;
• growers spend time to modify the irrigation schedules on their
  controllers to follow the elaborated irrigation planning.

The incorrect use of technological solutions can lead to inefficient irrigation, thus wasting water and energy and reaching high operating costs, but also to poor harvest and risks for crop survival. In view of all this, the Irreo platform uses satellite data, AI and automation to:

• provide crop water requirements without the need to buy, install and
  maintain sensors;
• provide an optimal irrigation scheduling that dynamically adapts to
  weather and crop water requirements, while considering irrigation system
  constraints and agronomic strategy;
• the irrigation plan is automatically downloaded to our controllers to
  perform variable rate irrigation.

Targeted customer/users’ countries

Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Morocco and Turkey.

Product description

The Irreo platform is an advanced irrigation system that combines the potential of modern satellite observation technology, AI and automation to increase crop yield through improved water efficiency, resulting in reduced irrigation costs.

The platform consists of three main modules:

1. Satellite-based crop water requirements: Irreo uses different satellite data and machine learning algorithms to estimate the actual evapotranspiration of different types of crops, with a high spatial resolution and a daily revisit time, without the need to buy, install and maintain any soil moisture sensors on the field.
2. Optimal irrigation scheduling: Irreo provides optimal and dynamic irrigation scheduling, recommending when and how much to irrigate for each sector, taking into account the water requirements of the farm’s crops, the constraints of the irrigation system, and the grower’s agronomic strategies.
3. Variable rate (or dynamic) irrigation: the optimal irrigation scheduling elaborated by Irreo is automatically downloaded to our controllers to perform variable rate irrigation on each sector, managing solenoid valves, fertilizers, mixers, pumps, filters and alarms. Using our controllers, our users will have the ability to dynamically irrigate each sector of their plot in fully automatic manners and manage the entire irrigation process remotely from our app.

Added Value

To cultivate the crop in the best way, the grower needs to optimally manage irrigation.
Nowadays, (s)he monitors growth and health of crops and decides when and how much to irrigate every field sector relying on experience or sensor technology.

The first scenario presents several risk variables and takes time, while the second one is expensive, time-consuming and risks to be economically disadvantageous, thus leading to incorrect use of technology, with consequences on the yield.

Once (s)he has collected data, it is time to translate them into a realistic and efficient irrigation plan and then start it manually or set the various schedules via the automation system. These operations should be done every day and are not risk-free.

With Irreo, the grower constantly receives precise and useful data on the app and can rely on an optimal irrigation plan that dynamically adapts to weather and crop water requirements, while considering irrigation system constraints and agronomic strategy, and that is automatically transferred to the irrigation system through our controllers.

Irreo’s innovations imply:

• time savings, as the grower needs some minutes per day to optimally manage irrigation;
• a 16% increase in water saving.
• 30 mm more evapotranspiration in the season with an estimated 11% increase in yield.

Current Status

The project has been successfully completed. All main components — including the cloud engine, the front-end application, and the custom hardware controller — are fully developed, tested, and stable. The latest finalised developments include the integration and validation of Land Surface Temperature within the cloud engine, the implementation of a fertigation calculator, and the release of the LTE-enabled hardware controller. In addition, the three pilot projects have been successfully completed, achieving excellent results: a 35% reduction in water usage and a 15% increase in productivity.