Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year (2017-2018 to 2018-2019).

In a growing sector with a $1.17 billion farm gate value, the development of greenhouse vegetables in Albertax000D
only represents a 4% of the greenhouse vegetable production in Canada. This results into a situation wherex000D
there still exists an opportunity to deliver significant benefits to the food industry in Canada through extensivex000D
research. The proposed research project tackles the most labor intensive and critical component of modernx000D
semiautomatic farms and addresses a key issue in the semi-automatic food industry: the racking process. Forx000D
indoor farms, where space is limited, the racking system determines not only the production rate of the farmx000D
but also the quality of the products leaving the facility. However, the concepts behind "industry 4.0" have yet tox000D
be implemented in most industries that are not related to digital manufacturing. The automation of such a keyx000D
component in the factory will suppose a big step forward in the upcoming revolution for the food industry.x000D
While RFID technology, biosensors or even robotics have been proven to possibly been implemented, the foodx000D
industry has not taken to the technology with the same pace as other industries, i.e. automotive. The proposedx000D
project will be a step towards securing an important relationship between the UofA researcher in sustainablex000D
automation of the local food industry. The project will result in training of HQPs, generate know-how relatedx000D
to automation and industry 4.0, as well as strengthen the industry-academic partnership resulting in innovativex000D
research and applied industry specific solutions.