Collaboration is the way forward, according to Charlie Lane of XD Innovation. The company is a UK start-up aimed at making the services of one of the world’s largest software houses, Dassault Systèmes, accessible to agri-tech businesses.
Digital twins in agri-tech
Digital twins allow the real world to be simulated and various scenarios to be modelled using actual data.
XD Innovation are resellers of products such as 3DEXPERIENCE®, software that enables collaborative working and the creation of digital twins.
Charlie explains that if, for example, you were developing a new type of robotic sprayer, you could use a digital twin to model the terrain, crop growth and leaf position and see the impacts of the environmental conditions, or the benefits of modifying the sprayer arm or droplet size on coverage.
All this can be done before the design is completed, accelerating the prototyping phase of development by removing the need for physical products.
Being able to combine data from different sources on the same platform enables it to be visualised and shared.
Opportunities for agricultural equipment to digitalise their operations
Charlie’s roots are in agriculture, working for dealerships and equipment manufacturers for over 15 years before he joined XD Innovation to head up a new agriculture division in the UK.
He sees opportunities in the UK to support established equipment manufacturers to digitalise their operations and accelerate new product developments. XD Innovation can provide technology roadmaps and offer consultancy to help transition its customers to collaborative environments, reducing waste and improving quality.
For example, Italian agricultural machinery manufacturer Maschio Gaspardo uses 3DEXPERIENCE to allow global developers and engineers to work together and to integrate the technical department with other functions. This has allowed the company to customise its products for particular applications and to keep ahead of the curve.
XD Innovation offers special support for agri-tech start-ups
Charlie was also keen for the company to join Agri-TechE in order to investigate how he can deliver scalable packages of support for start-ups.
He says: “The licence fees for some of our CADCAM and 3D software would be too steep for early-stage companies to purchase independently, but there are many benefits in using industry standard software from the outset as it meets international standards, such as those for sustainability, which helps to futureproof developments.
“I am keen to provide affordable packages of software and support to get these early-stage companies on the right track.”
Digital twins model land management strategies
The digital twin environment can also support diverse land management applications.
As farm businesses adopt Net Zero policies they need to collate and account for carbon emissions from different revenue streams and to simulate the impact of events such as extremes of weather.
Charlie is currently in the early stages of modelling a landscape scale project involving multiple partners in a vulnerable ecosystem. The intention is to make the complexity easily understood by human decision-makers and for them to be able to model different land use scenarios.
He explains that he can pull in expertise from other parts of the world. “I was at a Dassault Conference recently and discussing some of the challenges of the landscape project when someone put me in contact with a guy that had been working on the Singapore Smart City project. They have built a complete digital twin: waterways, emergency services, utilities – everything.
The digital twin environment enables modelling of scenarios
“The project we are working on is tiny in comparison but basically it is the same requirement, and we can learn from these installations.”
Charlie is keen to adapt solutions that have been developed for other industries to agri-tech. He uses the example of auditing:
“Aerospace operates to the highest quality standards and every component down to a screw has an audit trail – where and when it was made and by whom. Other companies such as L’Oréal beauty products have a similar system.
“The idea is there is one point of truth, and you can give permissions for auditors and others to see as much or as little as they need. I see huge potential for these types of collaborative projects working well for agri-food too.”
This post originally appeared on TechToday.