INESC TEC technology used data to help protect farmers’ well-being

The AgWearCare project resorts to wearables to collect and digitalise data, supporting agricultural tasks and preventing work-related musculoskeletal disorders. After the project, the researchers submitted a patent.

Most agricultural chores are still physically demanding. And although technology is increasingly present on farms, and the industry is investing in digitalisation, certain types of tasks can only be done manually. But what if technology could help protect the farmers from highly demanding tasks? INESC TEC developed a solution capable of obtaining metrics that allow analysing the health and well-being of workers through the monitoring of tasks and work intensity.

The AgWearCare project focused on “well-being” and “productivity” as the two key dimensions in the process of developing a farmers’ monitoring system to support their occupational health, as well as the management of crops and human resources. How? By collecting data from INESC TEC’s proprietary sensors. The tests were carried out with workers dedicated to three types of crops: vineyards, olive trees and kiwifruit.

Farmers went to the fields using wearables that collected data – which was later analysed and used to support the decision-making processes. “By measuring the workers’ geolocated metrics, one can also understand which areas of the field require greater or lesser efforts – which, in itself, may also indicate a greater or lesser density of any given crop”, explained Duarte Dias, INESC TEC researcher.

This new concept – and the data collected – allowed researchers to submit a patent to determine the state of the crop by analysing the farmers’ activity. But can this analysis have immediate consequences in situ? The answer is yes – while also playing a key role in the workers’ daily tasks.

“One of the most practical examples is the number of movements that a person performs during certain activities, e.g., pruning or picking the fruit; these indicate the worker’s effort and the amount of pruning and picking required for a certain area”, explained the researcher.

From this monitoring, it is possible to create strategies to reduce the risk of muscle-related issues and potential injuries, and to collect information about the state of the culture without the introduction of technology that requires specialised handling (ground robots or drones).

C-BER and LIAAD were the two INESC TEC centres responsible for this initiative.  AgWearCare can also support agricultural managers, so they can further understand the individual work of their employees. The project was led by the company wise Connect SA, with the collaboration of the Instituto Superior de Agronomia and APPITAD – Association of Producers in Integrated Protection of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro.

“The leading company of the project (Wise Connect S.A.) was quite interested in this project, and it aims to promote the development of the system – as an add-on for their commercial platform called WiseCrop”, mentioned Duarte Dias. Other plans include carrying out pilot tests with INESC TEC to validate the technology in the field.

AgWearCare – Wearables for Monitoring Working Conditions in Agroforestry was funded by the Portugal2020 programme, benefiting from €289K. The project ended in june and the final event took place in INESC TEC.