Sweden's Imagimob aims to bring AI to smart farming
Swedish artificial intelligence (AI) firm Imagimob is using its Edge AI technology to improve efficiency and sustainability in the industrial farming sector by identifying risks to plant and animal health. The company, a member of the Aggregate Farming in the cloud consortium, recently raised €400,000 ($469,584) in funding from the Electronic Components and Systems for European Leadership joint undertaking and Swedish state R&D body Vinnova.

Imagimob has received €400k in funding for Edge AI research in farming. Imagimob will use the funding to further strengthen and customise its Edge AI technology for specific requirements and challenges in the farming industry. The funding is administered by the ECSEL JU and Vinnova.

Farming is facing economic challenges in terms of productivity, cost-effectiveness, and increasing labour shortage. In addition, current farming systems have significant drawbacks such as flexibility, efficiency, sustainability and high operator cost. Reliable detection, accurate identification and quantification of factors affecting plant and animal health are critical to reduce costs, trade disruptions and even human health risks.

Imagimob is a member of The AFarCloud (Aggretate Farming in the cloud) consortium which represents the whole ICT-based agriculture solutions’ value chain needed for the future market uptake of the precision farming framework targeted in the project. There are 6 Swedish organisations in the consortium including Imagimob, Mälardalen University and RISE (Research Institutes of Sweden).

Outcomes from the AFarCloud project will strengthen the partners’ market position boosting their innovation capacity, addressing industrial needs in EU and internationally. Achievements in the AFarCloud project will be demonstrated in two field tests in both cropping and livestock scenarios.