Here is the history of PANTHEON publications.
JOURNAL PAPERS
Alberto Pacchiarelli, Cristian Silvestri and Valerio Cristofori. Advances in Sucker Control for Sustainable European Hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) Cultivation. Plants 11:, 2022.
Abstract European hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) is a shrub native to temperate zones of the northern hemisphere, and it is the most important species among the Corylus genus, mainly due to its high kernel demand from the confectionery industry. Its spontaneous habitus is characterized by a bushy shape, formed by numerous lignified stems generated by seasonal emission of suckers, which develop from adventitious buds inserted in the collar of stems, or more generally from the stump. Despite the agronomic role of suckers, which are often used to replace diseased, old, or poorly oriented branches, they compete with the plant for water and nutrient uptake, negatively influencing its growth and yield. In addition to promoting mechanical applications during the hazelnut orchard management, sucker removal is a required agronomic operation that must be carried out yearly during the growing season, making this practice expensive and time consuming, especially when performed manually. To date, there are several techniques for hazelnut sucker management, and their application depends on several factors, such as the size of the farm, model of cultivation (conventional or organic), soil orography, and plant training system. This review discusses the most widespread methods applied for sucker control, including manual, mechanical, physical, and chemical control (flame and steam), use of non-suckering rootstocks, disbudding, mulching, nitrogen solution applications, and new automatized control techniques recently proposed at the experimental level, analyzing their advantages and disadvantages. URL, DOI BibTeX@article{Pacchiarelli_2022, author = "Pacchiarelli, Alberto and Silvestri, Cristian and Cristofori, Valerio", title = "Advances in Sucker Control for Sustainable European Hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) Cultivation", journal = "Plants", volume = 11, pages = "", year = 2022, doi = "10.3390/plants11243416", publisher = "mdpi", abstract = "European hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) is a shrub native to temperate zones of the northern hemisphere, and it is the most important species among the Corylus genus, mainly due to its high kernel demand from the confectionery industry. Its spontaneous habitus is characterized by a bushy shape, formed by numerous lignified stems generated by seasonal emission of suckers, which develop from adventitious buds inserted in the collar of stems, or more generally from the stump. Despite the agronomic role of suckers, which are often used to replace diseased, old, or poorly oriented branches, they compete with the plant for water and nutrient uptake, negatively influencing its growth and yield. In addition to promoting mechanical applications during the hazelnut orchard management, sucker removal is a required agronomic operation that must be carried out yearly during the growing season, making this practice expensive and time consuming, especially when performed manually. To date, there are several techniques for hazelnut sucker management, and their application depends on several factors, such as the size of the farm, model of cultivation (conventional or organic), soil orography, and plant training system. This review discusses the most widespread methods applied for sucker control, including manual, mechanical, physical, and chemical control (flame and steam), use of non-suckering rootstocks, disbudding, mulching, nitrogen solution applications, and new automatized control techniques recently proposed at the experimental level, analyzing their advantages and disadvantages.", issn = "2223-7747", url = "https://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/11/24/3416", eprint = "" }Silvia Turco, Alessandro Grottoli, Mounira Inas Drais, Carlo De Spirito, Luigi Faino, Massimo Reverbi, Valerio Cristofori and Angelo Mazzaglia. {Draft Genome Sequence of a New Fusarium Isolate Belonging to Fusarium tricinctum Species Complex Collected from Hazelnut in Central Italy}. Frontiers in Plant Science 12:11, 2021.
Abstract In summer 2019, during a survey on the health status of a hazelnut orchard located in the Tuscia area (the province of Viterbo, Latium, Italy), nuts showing symptoms, such as brown-grayish spots at the bottom of the nuts progressing upward to the apex, and necrotic patches on the bracts and, sometimes, on the petioles, were found and collected for further studies. This syndrome is associated with the nut gray necrosis (NGN), whose main causal agent is Fusarium lateritium. Aiming to increase knowledge about this fungal pathogen, the whole-genome sequencing of a strain isolated from symptomatic hazelnut was performed using long Nanopore reads technology in combination with the higher precision of the Illumina reads, generating a high-quality genome assembly. The following phylogenetic and comparative genomics analysis suggested that this isolate is caused by the F. tricinctum species complex rather than F. lateritium one, as initially hypothesized. Thus, this study demonstrates that different Fusarium species can infect Corylus avellana producing the same symptomatology. In addition, it sheds light onto the genetic features of the pathogen in subject, clarifying facets about its biology, epidemiology, infection mechanisms, and host spectrum, with the future objective to develop specific and efficient control strategies. URL, DOI BibTeX@article{turco_2021, author = "Turco, Silvia and Grottoli, Alessandro and Drais, Mounira Inas and De Spirito, Carlo and Faino, Luigi and Reverbi, Massimo and Cristofori, Valerio and Mazzaglia, Angelo", title = "{Draft {Genome} {Sequence} of a {New} {Fusarium} {Isolate} {Belonging} to {Fusarium} tricinctum {Species} {Complex} {Collected} from {Hazelnut} in {Central} {Italy}}", journal = "Frontiers in Plant Science", volume = 12, pages = 11, year = 2021, doi = "10.3389/fpls.2021.788584", publisher = "Frontiers", abstract = "In summer 2019, during a survey on the health status of a hazelnut orchard located in the Tuscia area (the province of Viterbo, Latium, Italy), nuts showing symptoms, such as brown-grayish spots at the bottom of the nuts progressing upward to the apex, and necrotic patches on the bracts and, sometimes, on the petioles, were found and collected for further studies. This syndrome is associated with the nut gray necrosis (NGN), whose main causal agent is Fusarium lateritium. Aiming to increase knowledge about this fungal pathogen, the whole-genome sequencing of a strain isolated from symptomatic hazelnut was performed using long Nanopore reads technology in combination with the higher precision of the Illumina reads, generating a high-quality genome assembly. The following phylogenetic and comparative genomics analysis suggested that this isolate is caused by the F. tricinctum species complex rather than F. lateritium one, as initially hypothesized. Thus, this study demonstrates that different Fusarium species can infect Corylus avellana producing the same symptomatology. In addition, it sheds light onto the genetic features of the pathogen in subject, clarifying facets about its biology, epidemiology, infection mechanisms, and host spectrum, with the future objective to develop specific and efficient control strategies.", issn = "", url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/J6.pdf", eprint = "" }Stefano Speranza, Massimo Olmi, Leonardo Capradossi and Mario Contarini. A new species of Anteon (Hymenoptera, Dryinidae) from Turkey. Journal of Hymenoptera Research 84:373–380, 2021.
Abstract A new species from Turkey, Anteon leleji sp. nov. (Hymenoptera, Dryinidae), is described and illustrated. Its relationship with Palaearctic and Afrotropical species of Anteon is discussed. The new species is close to A. xericum Olmi & van Harten described from Yemen, and known also from other Afrotropical countries. The key to the Palaearctic species of Anteon is modified to include the new species. New records of Anteon species from Turkey are registered. URL, DOI BibTeX@article{speranza_new_2021, author = "Speranza, Stefano and Olmi, Massimo and Capradossi, Leonardo and Contarini, Mario", title = "A new species of {Anteon} ({Hymenoptera}, {Dryinidae}) from {Turkey}", journal = "Journal of Hymenoptera Research", volume = 84, pages = "373--380", year = 2021, doi = "10.3897/jhr.84.66615", publisher = "Pensoft", abstract = "A new species from Turkey, Anteon leleji sp. nov. (Hymenoptera, Dryinidae), is described and illustrated. Its relationship with Palaearctic and Afrotropical species of Anteon is discussed. The new species is close to A. xericum Olmi \& van Harten described from Yemen, and known also from other Afrotropical countries. The key to the Palaearctic species of Anteon is modified to include the new species. New records of Anteon species from Turkey are registered.", issn = "1314-2607, 1070-9428", url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/J5.pdf", eprint = "" }Luca Rossini, Nicolás Bono Rosselló, Stefano Speranza and Emanuele Garone. A general ODE-based model to describe the physiological age structure of ectotherms: Description and application to Drosophila suzukii. Ecological Modelling 456:109673, 2021.
Abstract This paper introduces a novel general model based on Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs) which is able to describe the population dynamics of a large class of insect pests. The proposed model is a physiologicallyinspired generalization of a number of ad hoc models presented through the years in the literature. Its main feature is that it allows the systematic generation of a population model for a species by simply defining its key features, namely the sex ratio and the development, fertility, and mortality rates. The first part of the paper provides a detailed description of the model and shows that most ODE-based models existing in literature can be obtained as a special case of the proposed model. The second part of the paper shows an application of the model to the spotted wing drosophila Drosophila suzukii, which is a highly relevant pest in agriculture. The biological features of this species, i.e., the sex ratio and the various rates, were retrieved from the existing scientific literature. The obtained model was validated using data from a three-year survey conducted in two experimental fields. Results show that the model describes faithfully the experimental populations, although the simulations were performed completely in open-loop and without any adaptation of the parameters extracted from the existing literature. URL, DOI BibTeX@article{ROSSINI2021, author = "Rossini, Luca and Bono Rosselló, Nicolás and Speranza, Stefano and Garone, Emanuele", title = "A general {ODE}-based model to describe the physiological age structure of ectotherms: {Description} and application to {Drosophila} suzukii", journal = "Ecological Modelling", volume = 456, pages = 109673, year = 2021, doi = "10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2021.109673", publisher = "Elsevier", abstract = "This paper introduces a novel general model based on Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs) which is able to describe the population dynamics of a large class of insect pests. The proposed model is a physiologicallyinspired generalization of a number of ad hoc models presented through the years in the literature. Its main feature is that it allows the systematic generation of a population model for a species by simply defining its key features, namely the sex ratio and the development, fertility, and mortality rates. The first part of the paper provides a detailed description of the model and shows that most ODE-based models existing in literature can be obtained as a special case of the proposed model. The second part of the paper shows an application of the model to the spotted wing drosophila Drosophila suzukii, which is a highly relevant pest in agriculture. The biological features of this species, i.e., the sex ratio and the various rates, were retrieved from the existing scientific literature. The obtained model was validated using data from a three-year survey conducted in two experimental fields. Results show that the model describes faithfully the experimental populations, although the simulations were performed completely in open-loop and without any adaptation of the parameters extracted from the existing literature.", issn = 03043800, url = "https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0304380021002313", eprint = "" }Nicolas Bono Rossello, Renzo Fabrizio Carpio, Andrea Gasparri and Emanuele Garone. Information-Driven Path Planning for UAV With Limited Autonomy in Large-Scale Field Monitoring. IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering :, 2021.
Abstract This article presents a novel information-based mission planner for a drone tasked to monitor a spatially distributed dynamical phenomenon. For the sake of simplicity, the area to be monitored is discretized. The insight behind the proposed approach is that, due to the spatiotemporal dependencies of the observed phenomenon, one does not need to collect data on the entire area, which is one of the main limiting factors in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) applications due to their limited autonomy. In fact, unmeasured states can be estimated using an estimator, such as a Kalman filter. In this context, the planning problem becomes the one of generating a flight plan that maximizes the quality of the state estimation while satisfying the flight constraints (e.g., flight time). The first result of this article is the formulation of this problem as a special orienteering problem where the cost function is a measure of the quality of the estimation. This results in a mixed-integer semidefinite formulation, which can be optimally solved for small instances of the problem. For larger instances, a heuristic is proposed, which provides suboptimal results. Simulations numerically demonstrate the capabilities and efficiency of the proposed path-planning strategy. We believe that this approach has the potential to increase dramatically the area that a drone can monitor, thus increasing the number of applications where monitoring with drones can become economically convenient. URL, DOI BibTeX@article{BONO2021, author = "{Bono Rossello}, Nicolas and Carpio, Renzo Fabrizio and Gasparri, Andrea and Garone, Emanuele", title = "Information-Driven Path Planning for UAV With Limited Autonomy in Large-Scale Field Monitoring", journal = "IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering", volume = "", pages = "", year = 2021, doi = "10.1109/TASE.2021.3085365", publisher = "IEEE", abstract = "This article presents a novel information-based mission planner for a drone tasked to monitor a spatially distributed dynamical phenomenon. For the sake of simplicity, the area to be monitored is discretized. The insight behind the proposed approach is that, due to the spatiotemporal dependencies of the observed phenomenon, one does not need to collect data on the entire area, which is one of the main limiting factors in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) applications due to their limited autonomy. In fact, unmeasured states can be estimated using an estimator, such as a Kalman filter. In this context, the planning problem becomes the one of generating a flight plan that maximizes the quality of the state estimation while satisfying the flight constraints (e.g., flight time). The first result of this article is the formulation of this problem as a special orienteering problem where the cost function is a measure of the quality of the estimation. This results in a mixed-integer semidefinite formulation, which can be optimally solved for small instances of the problem. For larger instances, a heuristic is proposed, which provides suboptimal results. Simulations numerically demonstrate the capabilities and efficiency of the proposed path-planning strategy. We believe that this approach has the potential to increase dramatically the area that a drone can monitor, thus increasing the number of applications where monitoring with drones can become economically convenient.", issn = "1558-3783", url = "https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9453790", eprint = "" }Matthias Pezzutto, Nicolás Bono Rosselló, Luca Schenato and Emanuele Garone. Smart testing and selective quarantine for the control of epidemics. Annual Reviews in Control :, 2021.
Abstract This paper is based on the observation that, during Covid-19 epidemic, the choice of which individuals should be tested has an important impact on the effectiveness of selective confinement measures. This decision problem is closely related to the problem of optimal sensor selection, which is a very active research subject in control engineering. The goal of this paper is to propose a policy to smartly select the individuals to be tested. The main idea is to model the epidemics as a stochastic dynamic system and to select the individual to be tested accordingly to some optimality criteria, e.g. to minimize the probability of undetected asymptomatic cases. Every day, the probability of infection of the different individuals is updated making use of the stochastic model of the phenomenon and of the information collected in the previous days. Simulations for a closed community of 10’000 individuals show that the proposed technique, coupled with a selective confinement policy, can reduce the spread of the disease while limiting the number of individuals confined if compared to the simple contact tracing of positive and to an off-line test selection strategy based on the number of contacts. URL, DOI BibTeX@article{PEZZUTTO2021, author = "Pezzutto, Matthias and {Bono Rosselló}, Nicolás and Schenato, Luca and Garone, Emanuele", title = "Smart testing and selective quarantine for the control of epidemics", journal = "Annual Reviews in Control", volume = "", pages = "", year = 2021, doi = "10.1016/j.arcontrol.2021.03.001", publisher = "Elsevier", abstract = "This paper is based on the observation that, during Covid-19 epidemic, the choice of which individuals should be tested has an important impact on the effectiveness of selective confinement measures. This decision problem is closely related to the problem of optimal sensor selection, which is a very active research subject in control engineering. The goal of this paper is to propose a policy to smartly select the individuals to be tested. The main idea is to model the epidemics as a stochastic dynamic system and to select the individual to be tested accordingly to some optimality criteria, e.g. to minimize the probability of undetected asymptomatic cases. Every day, the probability of infection of the different individuals is updated making use of the stochastic model of the phenomenon and of the information collected in the previous days. Simulations for a closed community of 10’000 individuals show that the proposed technique, coupled with a selective confinement policy, can reduce the spread of the disease while limiting the number of individuals confined if compared to the simple contact tracing of positive and to an off-line test selection strategy based on the number of contacts.", issn = "1367-5788", url = "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1367578821000092", eprint = "" }Cristian Silvestri, Loretta Bacchetta, Andrea Bellincontro and Valerio Cristofori. Advances in cultivar choice, hazelnut orchard management and nuts storage for enhancing product quality and safety: an overview. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture :jsfa.10557, 2020.
Abstract European hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) is the major species of interest for nutritional uses within the Betulaceae family and its nuts are widely used throughout the world in the chocolate, confectionery and bakery industries. Recently his cultivation has been expanded in traditional producer countries as well as established in new places in the Southern Hemisphere, including Chile, South Africa and Australia. Introducing hazelnut in new environments could reduce its productivity, lead the trees to eco-physiological disorders and exposes the crop to high pressure of common and new pests and diseases. Thus, new approaches in cultivar choice guidance, in the sustainable orchard management and even in nuts storage and kernel quality evaluation are highly required for improving the hazelnut producing and processing chain. The main objective of this study was to systematize the published information regarding the recent findings of the cultural operations that directly influence the nut and kernel quality, support the varietal choice for new plantations and list the recent advances in nut storage and in its quality and safety evaluation. URL, DOI BibTeX@article{silvestri_advances_2020, author = "Silvestri, Cristian and Bacchetta, Loretta and Bellincontro, Andrea and Cristofori, Valerio", title = "Advances in cultivar choice, hazelnut orchard management and nuts storage for enhancing product quality and safety: an overview", journal = "Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture", volume = "", pages = "jsfa.10557", year = 2020, doi = "10.1002/jsfa.10557", publisher = "Wiley", abstract = "European hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) is the major species of interest for nutritional uses within the Betulaceae family and its nuts are widely used throughout the world in the chocolate, confectionery and bakery industries. Recently his cultivation has been expanded in traditional producer countries as well as established in new places in the Southern Hemisphere, including Chile, South Africa and Australia. Introducing hazelnut in new environments could reduce its productivity, lead the trees to eco-physiological disorders and exposes the crop to high pressure of common and new pests and diseases. Thus, new approaches in cultivar choice guidance, in the sustainable orchard management and even in nuts storage and kernel quality evaluation are highly required for improving the hazelnut producing and processing chain. The main objective of this study was to systematize the published information regarding the recent findings of the cultural operations that directly influence the nut and kernel quality, support the varietal choice for new plantations and list the recent advances in nut storage and in its quality and safety evaluation.", issn = "0022-5142, 1097-0010", url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/J4.pdf", eprint = "" }Sebastian Lamprecht, Johannes Stoffels and Thomas Udelhoven. ALS as Tool to Study Preferred Stem Inclination Directions. remote sensing :36-44, 2020.
Abstract Although gravitropism forces trees to grow vertically, stems have shown to prefer specific orientations. Apart from wind deforming the tree shape, lateral light can result in prevailing inclination directions. In recent years a species dependent interaction between gravitropism and phototropism, resulting in trunks leaning down-slope, has been confirmed, but a terrestrial investigation of such factors is limited to small scale surveys. ALS offers the opportunity to investigate trees remotely. This study shall clarify whether ALS detected tree trunks can be used to identify prevailing trunk inclinations. In particular, the effect of topography, wind, soil properties and scan direction are investigated empirically using linear regression models. 299.000 significantly inclined stems were investigated. Species-specific prevailing trunk orientations could be observed. About 58% of the inclination and 19% of the orientation could be explained by the linear models, while the tree species, tree height, aspect and slope could be identified as significant factors. The models indicate that deciduous trees tend to lean down-slope, while conifers tend to lean leeward. This study has shown that ALS is suitable to investigate the trunk orientation on larger scales. It provides empirical evidence for the effect of phototropism and wind on the trunk orientation. URL, DOI BibTeX@article{sebastian_2020, author = "Lamprecht,Sebastian and Stoffels, Johannes and Udelhoven,Thomas", title = "ALS as Tool to Study Preferred Stem Inclination Directions", journal = "remote sensing", volume = "", pages = "36-44", year = 2020, doi = "", publisher = "MDPI", abstract = "Although gravitropism forces trees to grow vertically, stems have shown to prefer specific orientations. Apart from wind deforming the tree shape, lateral light can result in prevailing inclination directions. In recent years a species dependent interaction between gravitropism and phototropism, resulting in trunks leaning down-slope, has been confirmed, but a terrestrial investigation of such factors is limited to small scale surveys. ALS offers the opportunity to investigate trees remotely. This study shall clarify whether ALS detected tree trunks can be used to identify prevailing trunk inclinations. In particular, the effect of topography, wind, soil properties and scan direction are investigated empirically using linear regression models. 299.000 significantly inclined stems were investigated. Species-specific prevailing trunk orientations could be observed. About 58% of the inclination and 19% of the orientation could be explained by the linear models, while the tree species, tree height, aspect and slope could be identified as significant factors. The models indicate that deciduous trees tend to lean down-slope, while conifers tend to lean leeward. This study has shown that ALS is suitable to investigate the trunk orientation on larger scales. It provides empirical evidence for the effect of phototropism and wind on the trunk orientation.", issn = "https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12223744", url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/J7.pdf", eprint = "" }Sebastian Lamprecht. Pyoints: A Python package for point cloud, voxel and raster processing. JOSS 4:990, 2019.
Abstract The evolution of automated systems like autonomous robots and unmanned aerial vehicles leads to manifold opportunities in science, agriculture and industry. Remote sensing devices, like laser scanners and multi-spectral cameras, can be combined with sensor networks to all-embracingly monitor a research object. URL, DOI BibTeX@article{lamprecht_pyoints:_2019, author = "Lamprecht, Sebastian", title = "Pyoints: {A} {Python} package for point cloud, voxel and raster processing", journal = "JOSS", volume = 4, pages = 990, year = 2019, doi = "10.21105/joss.00990", publisher = "GitHub", abstract = "The evolution of automated systems like autonomous robots and unmanned aerial vehicles leads to manifold opportunities in science, agriculture and industry. Remote sensing devices, like laser scanners and multi-spectral cameras, can be combined with sensor networks to all-embracingly monitor a research object.", issn = "2475-9066", url = "http://joss.theoj.org/papers/10.21105/joss.00990", eprint = "https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.00990" }Stefano Speranza, Massimo Olmi, Adalgisa Guglielmino and Mario Contarini. Gonatopus jaliscanus sp. n., a new Pincer wasp from Jalisco, Mexico (Hymenoptera, Dryinidae). ZooKeys 818:35-42, 2019.
Abstract A new species of Gonatopus Ljungh, 1810, G. jaliscanus sp. n., from Jalisco, Mexico, is described and illustrated. In the Neotropical region, G. jaliscanus is similar to G. forestalis Olmi, 1998, but it is distinguished by the black mesosoma (except prothorax, mesoscutum, and mesoscutellum that are yellow), and the metapostnotum being granulated and not rugose; in G. forestalis the mesosoma is completely black and the metapostnotum is granulated and strongly rugose. In the Nearctic region, the new species is morphologically similar to G. curriei Krombein, 1962, but it is distinguished by the dull and granulated metapostonotum; in G. curriei the metapostnotum is shiny and unsculptured. The new species belongs to Gonatopus group 7. The keys to the females of the Nearctic and Neotropical species of this group are modified to include the new taxon. URL, DOI BibTeX@article{10.3897/zookeys.818.30974, author = "Speranza, Stefano and Olmi, Massimo and Guglielmino, Adalgisa and Contarini, Mario", title = "Gonatopus jaliscanus sp. n., a new Pincer wasp from Jalisco, Mexico (Hymenoptera, Dryinidae)", journal = "ZooKeys", volume = 818, pages = "35-42", year = 2019, doi = "10.3897/zookeys.818.30974", publisher = "Pensoft Publishers", abstract = "A new species of Gonatopus Ljungh, 1810, G. jaliscanus sp. n., from Jalisco, Mexico, is described and illustrated. In the Neotropical region, G. jaliscanus is similar to G. forestalis Olmi, 1998, but it is distinguished by the black mesosoma (except prothorax, mesoscutum, and mesoscutellum that are yellow), and the metapostnotum being granulated and not rugose; in G. forestalis the mesosoma is completely black and the metapostnotum is granulated and strongly rugose. In the Nearctic region, the new species is morphologically similar to G. curriei Krombein, 1962, but it is distinguished by the dull and granulated metapostonotum; in G. curriei the metapostnotum is shiny and unsculptured. The new species belongs to Gonatopus group 7. The keys to the females of the Nearctic and Neotropical species of this group are modified to include the new taxon.", issn = "1313-2989", url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/J1.pdf", eprint = "https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.818.30974" }Valerio Cristofori, Cristian Silvestri, Marco Paolocci, Aniello Luca Pica, Andrea Gasparri, Nadia Valentini and Roberto Botta. Gestione agronomica del corileto nell’era della “precision farming". Rivista di Frutticoltura e di ortofloricoltura 10:36-44, 2019.
Abstract La corilicoltura italiana, similmente a quanto verificatosi negli anni settanta-ottanta, è interessata da un nuovo periodo di espansione colturale. A differenza di quanto verificatosi in passato, il rinnovato interesse per la coltivazione del nocciolo è affiancato da un’attività sperimentale volta a promuovere modelli di gestione agronomica del corileto sostenibili e rispettosi dell’ambiente. Ne sono testimonianza le recenti acquisizioni nella gestione dei fattori acqua e nutrienti, oltre che le recenti applicazioni sperimentali di “precision farming” quale nuova proposta nella gestione degli impianti in aziende di dimensioni mediograndi. Il trasferimento tecnologico di innovazioni nella gestione del corileto va promosso senza soluzione di continuità anche attraverso il supporto delle associazioni di produttori per sviluppare una filiera di campo che consenta l’ottimizzazione delle operazioni colturali nel rispetto dell’ambiente e nella sostenibilità. URL, DOI BibTeX@article{gestione_agronomica_2019, author = "Cristofori, Valerio and Silvestri, Cristian and Paolocci, Marco and Pica, Aniello Luca and Gasparri, Andrea and Valentini, Nadia and Botta, Roberto", title = {Gestione agronomica del corileto nell’era della “precision farming"}, journal = "Rivista di Frutticoltura e di ortofloricoltura", volume = 10, pages = "36-44", year = 2019, doi = "", publisher = "Edagricole", abstract = "La corilicoltura italiana, similmente a quanto verificatosi negli anni settanta-ottanta, è interessata da un nuovo periodo di espansione colturale. A differenza di quanto verificatosi in passato, il rinnovato interesse per la coltivazione del nocciolo è affiancato da un’attività sperimentale volta a promuovere modelli di gestione agronomica del corileto sostenibili e rispettosi dell’ambiente. Ne sono testimonianza le recenti acquisizioni nella gestione dei fattori acqua e nutrienti, oltre che le recenti applicazioni sperimentali di “precision farming” quale nuova proposta nella gestione degli impianti in aziende di dimensioni mediograndi. Il trasferimento tecnologico di innovazioni nella gestione del corileto va promosso senza soluzione di continuità anche attraverso il supporto delle associazioni di produttori per sviluppare una filiera di campo che consenta l’ottimizzazione delle operazioni colturali nel rispetto dell’ambiente e nella sostenibilità.", issn = "0392-954X", url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/13.pdf", eprint = "" }Stefano Speranza, Massimo Olmi, Adalgisa Guglielmino and Mario Contarini. A new species of the genus Deinodryinus Perkins (Hymenoptera, Dryinidae) from the USA. ZooKeys 809:31-39, 2018.
Abstract A new species of Deinodryinus Perkins, 1907, is described from the USA, Texas: D. bimaculatus sp. n. Morphologically the new species is similar to D. masneri (Olmi, 1984), but it is distinguished by the head lacking a frontal line and the forewing crossed by two dark transverse bands; in D. masneri the head shows a conspicuous frontal line and the forewing is hyaline and without dark transverse bands. URL, DOI BibTeX@article{10.3897/zookeys.809.30647, author = "Speranza, Stefano and Olmi, Massimo and Guglielmino, Adalgisa and Contarini, Mario", title = "A new species of the genus Deinodryinus Perkins (Hymenoptera, Dryinidae) from the USA", journal = "ZooKeys", volume = 809, pages = "31-39", year = 2018, doi = "10.3897/zookeys.809.30647", publisher = "Pensoft Publishers", abstract = "A new species of Deinodryinus Perkins, 1907, is described from the USA, Texas: D. bimaculatus sp. n. Morphologically the new species is similar to D. masneri (Olmi, 1984), but it is distinguished by the head lacking a frontal line and the forewing crossed by two dark transverse bands; in D. masneri the head shows a conspicuous frontal line and the forewing is hyaline and without dark transverse bands.", issn = "1313-2989", url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/J2.pdf", eprint = "https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.809.30647" }
BOOK CHAPTERS
Laura Giustarini, Sebastian Lamprecht, Rebecca Retzlaff, Thomas Udelhoven, Nicolas Bono Rossellò, Emanuele Garone, Valerio Cristofori, Mario Contarini, Marco Paolocci, Cristian Silvestri, Stefano Speranza, Emanuele Graziani, Romeo Stelliferi, Renzo Fabrizio Carpio, Jacopo Maiolini, Riccardo Torlone, Giovanni Ulivi and Andrea Gasparri. PANTHEON: SCADA for Precision Agriculture. In Handbook of Real-Time Computing. 2020, 1–38.
Abstract In this chapter, we introduce the vision of the H2020 project “Precision Farming of Hazelnut Orchards” (PANTHEON), which is to develop the agricultural equivalent of an industrial Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to be used for precision farming of orchards. PANTHEON’s objective is to design an integrated system where a relatively limited number of heterogeneous unmanned robotic components (including terrestrial and aerial robots) move within the orchard to collect data and perform typical farming operations. In addition, an Internet-of-Things (IoT) agrometeorological solar-powered network is deployed to continuously monitor the environmental conditions of the orchard. The information so collected is then stored in a central operative unit that integrates the data to perform automatic feedback actions (e.g., to regulate the irrigation system) and to support the decisions of the agronomists and farmers in charge of the orchard. The proposed SCADA system will acquire information at the resolution of the individual plant, to drastically increase, compared to current best practices, the detection of possible limiting factors at the level of the individual plant and to react accordingly. Differently from the current state of the art in precision farming for large-scale orchards, the capability of monitoring the state and the evolution of each single tree will be the enabling technology to allow more focused interventions. This will lead to a better average health of the orchard and to an increased effectiveness of integrated pest management (IPM) activities. In conclusion, the ongoing implemented architecture has the potential to increase production while, at the same time, being more cost-effective and environmentally friendly. To summarize, we believe that the proposed SCADA paradigm for Precision Agriculture may represent an attractive opportunity for the design of a novel real-time software architecture. In other words, by allowing the processing of massive amounts of datasets derived from the SCADA architecture, it will be possible to step up the current effectiveness of Precision Agriculture (PA) methodologies by providing real-time answers to the questions posed by farm managers, when in need of timely decisions. URL, DOI BibTeX@inproceedings{giustarini_pantheon_2020, author = "Giustarini, Laura and Lamprecht, Sebastian and Retzlaff, Rebecca and Udelhoven, Thomas and Rossellò, Nicolas Bono and Garone, Emanuele and Cristofori, Valerio and Contarini, Mario and Paolocci, Marco and Silvestri, Cristian and Speranza, Stefano and Graziani, Emanuele and Stelliferi, Romeo and Carpio, Renzo Fabrizio and Maiolini, Jacopo and Torlone, Riccardo and Ulivi, Giovanni and Gasparri, Andrea", title = "{PANTHEON}: {SCADA} for {Precision} {Agriculture}", booktitle = "Handbook of {Real}-{Time} {Computing}", publisher = "Springer Singapore", address = "Singapore", year = 2020, pages = "1--38", doi = "10.1007/978-981-4585-87-3_42-1", isbn = "978-981-4585-87-3", url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/ch_3.pdf", abstract = "In this chapter, we introduce the vision of the H2020 project “Precision Farming of Hazelnut Orchards” (PANTHEON), which is to develop the agricultural equivalent of an industrial Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to be used for precision farming of orchards. PANTHEON’s objective is to design an integrated system where a relatively limited number of heterogeneous unmanned robotic components (including terrestrial and aerial robots) move within the orchard to collect data and perform typical farming operations. In addition, an Internet-of-Things (IoT) agrometeorological solar-powered network is deployed to continuously monitor the environmental conditions of the orchard. The information so collected is then stored in a central operative unit that integrates the data to perform automatic feedback actions (e.g., to regulate the irrigation system) and to support the decisions of the agronomists and farmers in charge of the orchard. The proposed SCADA system will acquire information at the resolution of the individual plant, to drastically increase, compared to current best practices, the detection of possible limiting factors at the level of the individual plant and to react accordingly. Differently from the current state of the art in precision farming for large-scale orchards, the capability of monitoring the state and the evolution of each single tree will be the enabling technology to allow more focused interventions. This will lead to a better average health of the orchard and to an increased effectiveness of integrated pest management (IPM) activities. In conclusion, the ongoing implemented architecture has the potential to increase production while, at the same time, being more cost-effective and environmentally friendly. To summarize, we believe that the proposed SCADA paradigm for Precision Agriculture may represent an attractive opportunity for the design of a novel real-time software architecture. In other words, by allowing the processing of massive amounts of datasets derived from the SCADA architecture, it will be possible to step up the current effectiveness of Precision Agriculture (PA) methodologies by providing real-time answers to the questions posed by farm managers, when in need of timely decisions." }Valerio Cristofori, Stefano Speranza and Cristian Silvestri. Developing hazelnuts as a sustainable and industrial crop. In Burleigh Dodds Series in Agricultural Science. 2019, 465–504.
Abstract The European hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) is a major species of interest for nutritional use and is the primary economically valuable commercial tree nut crop within the Betulaceae family. C. avellana is a temperate, diploid (2n = 2x = 22), monoecious, wind-pollinated, dichogamous species, exhibiting sporophytic incompatibility and a relatively small genome size (1C around 385 Mb) (Mehlenbacher, 2014). Its geographical distribution ranges from Asia Minor and the Caucasus region to Europe and North Africa (Boccacci et al., 2013). Approximately 660 000 ha of the world’s surface is used to cultivate hazelnuts (FAOSTAT, 2018), with an average in-shell annual production of approximately 835 000 tons recorded between 2012 and 2016 (FAOSTAT, 2018). Production is mainly concentrated in two countries: Turkey (563 000 tons) and Italy (112 000 tons); however, other significant producers include the United States (34 000 tons), Georgia (32 000 tons), Azerbaijan (31 000 tons) and Spain (15 000 tons). This nut crop has recently been cultivated in the Southern Hemisphere in countries such as Chile, South Africa and Australia. In general, world production shows an increasing trend from the beginning of actions (e.g. to regulate the irrigation system) and to support the decisions of agronomists and farmers. URL, DOI BibTeX@inproceedings{ondokuz_mayis_university_turkey_developing_2019, author = "Cristofori, Valerio and Speranza, Stefano and Silvestri, Cristian", title = "Developing hazelnuts as a sustainable and industrial crop", booktitle = "Burleigh {Dodds} {Series} in {Agricultural} {Science}", publisher = "Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing", address = "", year = 2019, pages = "465--504", doi = "10.19103/AS.2018.0042.21", isbn = "978-1-78676-224-5", url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/ch_2.pdf", abstract = "The European hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) is a major species of interest for nutritional use and is the primary economically valuable commercial tree nut crop within the Betulaceae family. C. avellana is a temperate, diploid (2n = 2x = 22), monoecious, wind-pollinated, dichogamous species, exhibiting sporophytic incompatibility and a relatively small genome size (1C around 385 Mb) (Mehlenbacher, 2014). Its geographical distribution ranges from Asia Minor and the Caucasus region to Europe and North Africa (Boccacci et al., 2013). Approximately 660 000 ha of the world’s surface is used to cultivate hazelnuts (FAOSTAT, 2018), with an average in-shell annual production of approximately 835 000 tons recorded between 2012 and 2016 (FAOSTAT, 2018). Production is mainly concentrated in two countries: Turkey (563 000 tons) and Italy (112 000 tons); however, other significant producers include the United States (34 000 tons), Georgia (32 000 tons), Azerbaijan (31 000 tons) and Spain (15 000 tons). This nut crop has recently been cultivated in the Southern Hemisphere in countries such as Chile, South Africa and Australia. In general, world production shows an increasing trend from the beginning of actions (e.g. to regulate the irrigation system) and to support the decisions of agronomists and farmers." }Antonio Maccioni and Riccardo Torlone. KAYAK: A Framework for Just-in-Time Data Preparation in a Data Lake. In Advanced Information Systems Engineering. 2018, 474–489.
Abstract A data lake is a loosely-structured collection of data at large scale that is usually fed with almost no requirement of data quality. This approach aims at eliminating any human effort before the actual exploitation of data, but the problem is only delayed since preparing and querying a data lake is usually a hard task. We address this problem by introducing Kayak, a framework that helps data scientists in the definition and optimization of pipelines of data preparation. Since in many cases approximations of the results, which can be computed rapidly, are enough informative, Kayak allows the users to specify their needs in terms of accuracy over performance and produces previews of the outputs satisfying such requirement. In this way, the pipeline is executed much faster and the process of data preparation is shortened. We discuss the design choices of Kayak including execution strategies, optimization techniques, scheduling of operations, and metadata management. With a set of preliminary experiments, we show that the approach is effective and scales well with the number of datasets in the data lake. URL, DOI BibTeX@inproceedings{10.1007/978-3-319-91563-0_29, author = "Maccioni, Antonio and Torlone, Riccardo", title = "KAYAK: A Framework for Just-in-Time Data Preparation in a Data Lake", booktitle = "Advanced Information Systems Engineering", publisher = "Springer International Publishing", address = "Cham", year = 2018, pages = "474--489", doi = "10.1007/978-3-319-91563-0_29", isbn = "978-3-319-91563-0", url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/6.pdf", abstract = "A data lake is a loosely-structured collection of data at large scale that is usually fed with almost no requirement of data quality. This approach aims at eliminating any human effort before the actual exploitation of data, but the problem is only delayed since preparing and querying a data lake is usually a hard task. We address this problem by introducing Kayak, a framework that helps data scientists in the definition and optimization of pipelines of data preparation. Since in many cases approximations of the results, which can be computed rapidly, are enough informative, Kayak allows the users to specify their needs in terms of accuracy over performance and produces previews of the outputs satisfying such requirement. In this way, the pipeline is executed much faster and the process of data preparation is shortened. We discuss the design choices of Kayak including execution strategies, optimization techniques, scheduling of operations, and metadata management. With a set of preliminary experiments, we show that the approach is effective and scales well with the number of datasets in the data lake." }
CONFERENCE PAPERS
Martina Lippi, Niccolò Bonucci, Renzo Fabrizio Carpio, Mario Contarini, Stefano Speranza and Andrea Gasparri. A YOLO-Based Pest Detection System for Precision Agriculture. In 2021 29th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation (MED). June 2021, 342-347.
Abstract In this work, inspired by the needs of the H2020 European project PANTHEON for the precision farming of hazelnut orchards, we propose a data-driven pest detection system. Indeed, the early detection of pests represents an essential step towards the design of effective crop defense strategies in Precision Agriculture (PA) settings. Among the possible pests, we focus on true bugs as they can heavily compromise hazelnut production. To this aim, we collect a custom dataset in a realistic outdoor environment and train a You Only Look Once (YOLO)-based Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), achieving ≈ 94.5% average precision on a holdout dataset. We extensively evaluate the detector performance by also analyzing the influence of data augmentation techniques and of depth information. We finally deploy it on a NVIDIA Jetson Xavier on which it reaches ≈ 50 fps, enabling online processing on-board of any robotic platform. URL, DOI BibTeX@inproceedings{lippi_2021, author = "Lippi, Martina and Bonucci, Niccolò and Carpio, Renzo Fabrizio and Contarini, Mario and Speranza, Stefano and Gasparri, Andrea", title = "A YOLO-Based Pest Detection System for Precision Agriculture", booktitle = "2021 29th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation (MED)", address = "Puglia, Italy", month = "June", year = 2021, pages = "342-347", doi = "10.1109/MED51440.2021.9480344", url = "https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9480344", abstract = "In this work, inspired by the needs of the H2020 European project PANTHEON for the precision farming of hazelnut orchards, we propose a data-driven pest detection system. Indeed, the early detection of pests represents an essential step towards the design of effective crop defense strategies in Precision Agriculture (PA) settings. Among the possible pests, we focus on true bugs as they can heavily compromise hazelnut production. To this aim, we collect a custom dataset in a realistic outdoor environment and train a You Only Look Once (YOLO)-based Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), achieving ≈ 94.5% average precision on a holdout dataset. We extensively evaluate the detector performance by also analyzing the influence of data augmentation techniques and of depth information. We finally deploy it on a NVIDIA Jetson Xavier on which it reaches ≈ 50 fps, enabling online processing on-board of any robotic platform." }Nicolas Bono Rossello, Matthias Pezzutto, Luca Schenato, Ignazio Castagliuolo and Emanuele Garone. On the effect of the number of tests and their time of application in tracing policies against COVID-19.. In 11th IFAC Symposium on Biological and Medical Systems BMS 2021. 2021, 157–162.
Abstract In this paper we explore the effect of the number of daily tests on an epidemics control policy purely based on testing and selective quarantine, and the impact of these actions depending on the time their application starts. We introduce a general model incorporating a stochastic disease evolution, a particular weighted graph representing the population, and an optimal contact tracing strategy to allocate available tests. Simulations on a community of 50’000 individuals show that the evolution of the epidemic produces a clear non-linear response to the variation of the number of tests used and to the starting time of their application. These results suggest that not only a minimum number of tests is necessary to obtain a positive outcome from the tracing strategy but also that there exists a saturation on the contribution of additional tests. The results also show that the timing in the application of the measures is as important as the measures themselves and that an excessive delay can be hardly overcome. URL, DOI BibTeX@inproceedings{bono_rossello_effect_2021, author = "Bono Rossello, Nicolas and Pezzutto, Matthias and Schenato, Luca and Castagliuolo, Ignazio and Garone, Emanuele", title = "On the effect of the number of tests and their time of application in tracing policies against {COVID}-19.", booktitle = "11th IFAC Symposium on Biological and Medical Systems BMS 2021", address = "Ghent, Belgium", month = "Sept", year = 2021, pages = "157--162", doi = "10.1016/j.ifacol.2021.10.248", url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/14.pdf", abstract = "In this paper we explore the effect of the number of daily tests on an epidemics control policy purely based on testing and selective quarantine, and the impact of these actions depending on the time their application starts. We introduce a general model incorporating a stochastic disease evolution, a particular weighted graph representing the population, and an optimal contact tracing strategy to allocate available tests. Simulations on a community of 50’000 individuals show that the evolution of the epidemic produces a clear non-linear response to the variation of the number of tests used and to the starting time of their application. These results suggest that not only a minimum number of tests is necessary to obtain a positive outcome from the tracing strategy but also that there exists a saturation on the contribution of additional tests. The results also show that the timing in the application of the measures is as important as the measures themselves and that an excessive delay can be hardly overcome." }Ciro Potena, Renzo Fabrizio Carpio, Nico Pietroni, Jacopo Maiolini, Giovanni Ulivi, Emanuele Garone and Andrea Gasparri. Suckers Emission Detection and Volume Estimation for the Precision Farming of Hazelnut Orchards. In 2020 IEEE Conference on Control Technology and Applications (CCTA). August 2020, .
Abstract In this work, inspired by the needs of the H2020 European Project PANTHEON1, we address the hazelnut sucker detection and canopy volume estimation problem on a per-plant basis. Sucker control is an essential but challenging practice in agriculture, given the fact that suckers, i.e., shoots that grow from the tree roots, compete with the tree itself for water and nutrients. This research is motivated by the observation that in current best-practice, sucker control is carried out by applying a non-calibrated amount of chemical inputs to each tree. Indeed, a proper sucker detection and estimation algorithm would represent the enabling technology for an environmentally friendly sucker control approach where the amount of herbicide could be properly calibrated according to the needs of each individual plant. In this work, we propose an end-to-end algorithm for detecting the presence of suckers and for estimating their canopy. First a sparse point cloud-based representation of the suckers is detected, then an approximated canopy estimation is achieved by means of a tailored meshing strategy that performs a leaf-based clustering and an iterative clusters connection. The volume is then estimated by the resulting mesh. Preliminary real-world experiments are provided to corroborate the effectiveness of the proposed canopy estimation strategy. URL, DOI BibTeX@inproceedings{potena_suckers_2020, author = "Potena, Ciro and Carpio, Renzo Fabrizio and Pietroni, Nico and Maiolini, Jacopo and Ulivi, Giovanni and Garone, Emanuele and Gasparri, Andrea", title = "Suckers {Emission} {Detection} and {Volume} {Estimation} for the {Precision} {Farming} of {Hazelnut} {Orchards}", booktitle = "2020 {IEEE} {Conference} on {Control} {Technology} and {Applications} ({CCTA})", address = "Montreal, QC, Canada", month = "Aug", year = 2020, pages = "", doi = "10.1109/CCTA41146.2020.9206335", url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/potena2020.pdf", abstract = "In this work, inspired by the needs of the H2020 European Project PANTHEON1, we address the hazelnut sucker detection and canopy volume estimation problem on a per-plant basis. Sucker control is an essential but challenging practice in agriculture, given the fact that suckers, i.e., shoots that grow from the tree roots, compete with the tree itself for water and nutrients. This research is motivated by the observation that in current best-practice, sucker control is carried out by applying a non-calibrated amount of chemical inputs to each tree. Indeed, a proper sucker detection and estimation algorithm would represent the enabling technology for an environmentally friendly sucker control approach where the amount of herbicide could be properly calibrated according to the needs of each individual plant. In this work, we propose an end-to-end algorithm for detecting the presence of suckers and for estimating their canopy. First a sparse point cloud-based representation of the suckers is detected, then an approximated canopy estimation is achieved by means of a tailored meshing strategy that performs a leaf-based clustering and an iterative clusters connection. The volume is then estimated by the resulting mesh. Preliminary real-world experiments are provided to corroborate the effectiveness of the proposed canopy estimation strategy." }Nicolas Bono Rossello and Emanuele Garone. Carrier-vehicle system for delivery in city environments. In 21th IFAC World Congress. January 2020, 15253–15258.
Abstract In this paper we present an extension of the carrier-vehicle problem for the case of delivery in an urban environment. The small vehicle, namely a drone, performs the delivery of goods at the customer address while the large vehicle is in charge of transporting, launching, recovering and servicing the drone. In this work it is assumed that the take-off and landing points are not at the location of the customer but fixed spots predefined by the city. In this context, the truck is allowed to advance during the drone delivery, providing a landing location closer to the following client and reducing the route completion time. The selection of these spots is restricted by the autonomy of the drone and the velocity of both vehicles. The urban environment is addressed by defining a different distance metric for the aerial and the terrestrial vehicle, respectively. The paper presents a mixed-integer linear programming formulation which allows to solve the given problem of computing the truck routes and selecting the optimal takeoff/landing spots in reasonable time. Illustrative examples of this problem and a computational analysis of the presented solution conclude the paper. URL, DOI BibTeX@inproceedings{rossello_carrier-vehicle_2020, author = "Bono Rossello, Nicolas and Garone, Emanuele", title = "Carrier-vehicle system for delivery in city environments", booktitle = "21th IFAC World Congress", address = "Berlin, Germany", month = "Jan", year = 2020, pages = "15253--15258", doi = "10.1016/j.ifacol.2020.12.2314", url = "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405896320329815", abstract = "In this paper we present an extension of the carrier-vehicle problem for the case of delivery in an urban environment. The small vehicle, namely a drone, performs the delivery of goods at the customer address while the large vehicle is in charge of transporting, launching, recovering and servicing the drone. In this work it is assumed that the take-off and landing points are not at the location of the customer but fixed spots predefined by the city. In this context, the truck is allowed to advance during the drone delivery, providing a landing location closer to the following client and reducing the route completion time. The selection of these spots is restricted by the autonomy of the drone and the velocity of both vehicles. The urban environment is addressed by defining a different distance metric for the aerial and the terrestrial vehicle, respectively. The paper presents a mixed-integer linear programming formulation which allows to solve the given problem of computing the truck routes and selecting the optimal takeoff/landing spots in reasonable time. Illustrative examples of this problem and a computational analysis of the presented solution conclude the paper." }Nicolas Bono Rossello, Renzo Fabrizio Carpio, Andrea Gasparri and Emanuele Garone. A novel Observer-based Architecture for Water Management in Large-Scale (Hazelnut) Orchards. In AgriControl 2019, 6th IFAC Conference on Sensing, Control and Automation Technologies for Agriculture. December 2019, .
Abstract Water management is an important aspect in modern agriculture. Irrigation systems are becoming more and more complex, trying to minimize the water consumption while ensuring the necessities of the plants. A fundamental requirement to define efficient irrigation policies is to be able to estimate the water status of the plants and of the soil. In this context, precision agriculture addresses this problem by using the latest technological advancements. In particular, most of the works in the literature aim to develop highly accurate estimations under the assumption of the availability of a dense network of sensors. Although this assumption may be adequate for intensive farming (e.g. greenhouses), it becomes quite unrealistic in the context of large-scale scenarios. In this work, we propose a novel observer-based architecture for the water management of large-scale (hazelnut) orchards which relies on a network of sparsely deployed soil moisture sensors along with a weather station and on remote sensing measurements carried out by drones with a pre-defined periodicity. The contribution is twofold: i) First a novel model of the water dynamics in an hazelnut orchard is proposed, which includes the water dynamics in the soil and in the plants, and ii) then, on the basis of this model and of the available measurements, the use of a Kalman filter with intermittent observations is proposed, taking also into account the availability of the weather station measurements. The effectiveness of the proposed solution is validated through simulation. URL, DOI BibTeX@inproceedings{bono_hazelnut_2019, author = "Bono Rossello, Nicolas and Carpio, Renzo Fabrizio and Gasparri, Andrea and Garone, Emanuele", title = "A novel Observer-based Architecture for Water Management in Large-Scale (Hazelnut) Orchards", booktitle = "AgriControl 2019, 6th IFAC Conference on Sensing, Control and Automation Technologies for Agriculture", address = "Sydney, Australia", month = "Dec", year = 2019, pages = "", doi = "10.1016/j.ifacol.2019.12.498", url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/12.pdf", abstract = "Water management is an important aspect in modern agriculture. Irrigation systems are becoming more and more complex, trying to minimize the water consumption while ensuring the necessities of the plants. A fundamental requirement to define efficient irrigation policies is to be able to estimate the water status of the plants and of the soil. In this context, precision agriculture addresses this problem by using the latest technological advancements. In particular, most of the works in the literature aim to develop highly accurate estimations under the assumption of the availability of a dense network of sensors. Although this assumption may be adequate for intensive farming (e.g. greenhouses), it becomes quite unrealistic in the context of large-scale scenarios. In this work, we propose a novel observer-based architecture for the water management of large-scale (hazelnut) orchards which relies on a network of sparsely deployed soil moisture sensors along with a weather station and on remote sensing measurements carried out by drones with a pre-defined periodicity. The contribution is twofold: i) First a novel model of the water dynamics in an hazelnut orchard is proposed, which includes the water dynamics in the soil and in the plants, and ii) then, on the basis of this model and of the available measurements, the use of a Kalman filter with intermittent observations is proposed, taking also into account the availability of the weather station measurements. The effectiveness of the proposed solution is validated through simulation." }Tigran Fahradyan, Nicolas Bono Rossello and Emanuele Garone. Multiple Carrier-Vehicle Travelling Salesman Problem. In International Conference on Modelling and Simulation for Autonomous Systems - MESAS 2019. October 2019, .
Abstract In this paper the Carrier-Vehicle Travelling Salesman Problem (CV-TSP) is extended to the case of 2 carriers and one small vehicle. The paper defines a minimum-time trajectory mission plan for the visit of a group of target points by the small vehicle. In this scenario the main goal is to optimize the use of both carriers as a support of the vehicle. A Mixed-Integer Second Order Conic Programming (MISCOP) formulation is proposed for the case of a given order of visit. Additionally, the authors develop a fast heuristic which provides close to optimal results in a decent computational time. To end the paper several simulations are computed to show the effectiveness of the proposed solution. URL, DOI BibTeX@inproceedings{tigran_2019, author = "Fahradyan, Tigran and Bono Rossello, Nicolas and Garone, Emanuele", title = "Multiple Carrier-Vehicle Travelling Salesman Problem", booktitle = "International Conference on Modelling and Simulation for Autonomous Systems - MESAS 2019", address = "Palermo, Italy", month = "Oct", year = 2019, pages = "", doi = "10.1007/978-3-030-43890-6_14", url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/11.pdf", abstract = "In this paper the Carrier-Vehicle Travelling Salesman Problem (CV-TSP) is extended to the case of 2 carriers and one small vehicle. The paper defines a minimum-time trajectory mission plan for the visit of a group of target points by the small vehicle. In this scenario the main goal is to optimize the use of both carriers as a support of the vehicle. A Mixed-Integer Second Order Conic Programming (MISCOP) formulation is proposed for the case of a given order of visit. Additionally, the authors develop a fast heuristic which provides close to optimal results in a decent computational time. To end the paper several simulations are computed to show the effectiveness of the proposed solution." }Matteo Santilli, Alessandro Marino and Andrea Gasparri. A Finite-Time Protocol for Distributed Continuous-Time Optimization of Sum of Locally Coupled Strictly Convex Functions. In 2018 IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC). December 2018, 993-998.
Abstract In this paper we study a distributed optimization problem for continuous time multi-agent systems. In our setting, the global objective for the multi-agent system is to minimize the sum of locally coupled strictly convex cost functions. Notably, this class of optimization objectives can be used to encode several important problems such as distributed estimation. For this problem setting, we propose a distributed signed gradient descent algorithm, which relies on local observers to retrieve 2-hop state information that are required to compute the descent direction. Adaptive gains for the local observer are introduced to render the convergence independent from: i) the structure of the network topology and ii) the local gains of the per-agent signed gradient-descent update law. The finite-time convergence of the local observer and of the proposed signed gradient descent method is demonstrated. Numerical simulations involving a distributed weighted least-square (WLS) estimation problem, with the aim of identifying in the context of an advanced water management system for precision-farming the soil thermal properties in a large-scale hazelnut orchard, have been proposed to corroborate the theoretical findings. URL, DOI BibTeX@inproceedings{cdc2018, author = "Santilli, Matteo and Marino, Alessandro and Gasparri, Andrea", booktitle = "2018 IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC)", title = "A Finite-Time Protocol for Distributed Continuous-Time Optimization of Sum of Locally Coupled Strictly Convex Functions", address = "Florida, USA", month = "Dec", year = 2018, pages = "993-998", doi = "10.1109/CDC.2018.8619315", issn = "2576-2370", url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/9.pdf", abstract = "In this paper we study a distributed optimization problem for continuous time multi-agent systems. In our setting, the global objective for the multi-agent system is to minimize the sum of locally coupled strictly convex cost functions. Notably, this class of optimization objectives can be used to encode several important problems such as distributed estimation. For this problem setting, we propose a distributed signed gradient descent algorithm, which relies on local observers to retrieve 2-hop state information that are required to compute the descent direction. Adaptive gains for the local observer are introduced to render the convergence independent from: i) the structure of the network topology and ii) the local gains of the per-agent signed gradient-descent update law. The finite-time convergence of the local observer and of the proposed signed gradient descent method is demonstrated. Numerical simulations involving a distributed weighted least-square (WLS) estimation problem, with the aim of identifying in the context of an advanced water management system for precision-farming the soil thermal properties in a large-scale hazelnut orchard, have been proposed to corroborate the theoretical findings." }Renzo Fabrizio Carpio, Letizia Di Giulio, Emanuele Garone, Giovanni Ulivi and Andrea Gasparri. A Distributed Swarm Aggregation Algorithm for Bar Shaped Multi-Agent Systems. In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). October 2018, 4304-4307.
Abstract In this work we consider a swarm of agents shaped as bars with a certain orientation in the state space. Members of the swarm have to reach an aggregate state, while guaranteeing the collision avoidance and possibly achieving an angular consensus. By relying on a segment-to-segment distance definition, we propose a control law, which guides the agents towards this goal. A theoretical analysis of the proposed control scheme along with simulations and experimental results is provided. The proposed framework can be used to model several application scenarios ranging from collaborative transportation to precision farming, where each agent may represent either a large robot or a group of robots intent to carry bar-like shaped loads. Representative examples include: a fleet of robot-teams performing a collaborative object transportation task in an automated logistic setting, or a fleet of autonomous tractors each carrying a large atomizer to spray chemical products for pest and disease control in a precision farming setting. URL, DOI BibTeX@inproceedings{carpio_distributed_2018, author = "Carpio, Renzo Fabrizio and Di Giulio, Letizia and Garone, Emanuele and Ulivi, Giovanni and Gasparri, Andrea", title = "A Distributed Swarm Aggregation Algorithm for Bar Shaped Multi-Agent Systems", booktitle = "IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)", address = "Madrid, Spain", month = "Oct", year = 2018, pages = "4304-4307", doi = "10.1109/IROS.2018.8594236", url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/5.pdf", abstract = "In this work we consider a swarm of agents shaped as bars with a certain orientation in the state space. Members of the swarm have to reach an aggregate state, while guaranteeing the collision avoidance and possibly achieving an angular consensus. By relying on a segment-to-segment distance definition, we propose a control law, which guides the agents towards this goal. A theoretical analysis of the proposed control scheme along with simulations and experimental results is provided. The proposed framework can be used to model several application scenarios ranging from collaborative transportation to precision farming, where each agent may represent either a large robot or a group of robots intent to carry bar-like shaped loads. Representative examples include: a fleet of robot-teams performing a collaborative object transportation task in an automated logistic setting, or a fleet of autonomous tractors each carrying a large atomizer to spray chemical products for pest and disease control in a precision farming setting." }Elie Hermand, Tam Willy Nguyen, Mehdi Hosseinzadeh and Emanuele Garone. Constrained Control of UAVs in Geofencing Applications. In 2018 26th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation (MED). June 2018, 217-222.
Abstract This paper focuses on the constrained control of UAVs in geofencing applications. Although geofence systems are becoming more attractive as a research topic, most works are focusing on defining the boundaries of the admissible geographical region without addressing the control issues and boundary-handling problems. In this paper, we propose a constrained control scheme to steer an UAV to the desired position while ensuring constraints satisfaction at all times. To do so, we make use of the recently introduced Explicit Reference Governor framework. The proposed scheme is validated through extensive experimental studies carried out in a laboratory environment. URL, DOI BibTeX@inproceedings{8443035, author = "Hermand, Elie and Nguyen, Tam Willy and Hosseinzadeh, Mehdi and Garone, Emanuele", title = "Constrained Control of UAVs in Geofencing Applications", booktitle = "2018 26th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation (MED)", address = "Zadar, Croatia", month = "June", year = 2018, pages = "217-222", doi = "10.1109/MED.2018.8443035", issn = "2473-3504", url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/8.pdf", abstract = "This paper focuses on the constrained control of UAVs in geofencing applications. Although geofence systems are becoming more attractive as a research topic, most works are focusing on defining the boundaries of the admissible geographical region without addressing the control issues and boundary-handling problems. In this paper, we propose a constrained control scheme to steer an UAV to the desired position while ensuring constraints satisfaction at all times. To do so, we make use of the recently introduced Explicit Reference Governor framework. The proposed scheme is validated through extensive experimental studies carried out in a laboratory environment." }
EXTENDED ABSTRACTS
Alessandro Grottoli, Silvia Turco, Mounira Inas Drais, Luigi Faino, Massimo Reverberi, Valerio Cristofori and Angelo Mazzaglia. Draft genome sequence of a new Fusarium isolate collected from hazelnut in Central Italy (extended abstract). In Nanopore Community Meeting. December 2021.
Abstract In summery 2019, during a phytosanitary monitoring of a hazelnut orchard located in the Tuscia area (province of Viterbo, Latium, Italy), diseased hazelnuts were found and collected for further studies. The symptoms resembled the previously described Nut Gray Necrosis (NGN), mainly associated to Fusarium lateritium, including brown-greyish spots at the bottom of the nuts progressing upwards to the apex, and of necrotic patches on the bracts and less often on the petioles. This disease has a potentially significant economic impact on the Italian hazelnut cultivation, since its large area of 85,000 ha, covering Campania, Latium, Sicily, and Piedmont, makes Italy one of the largest world hazelnut producers, together with Turkey, Spain, USA and Greece. For this reason, we performed a whole genome sequencing of the strain isolated from hazelnut, taking advantage of the long reads produced by Nanopore technology in combination with the higher precision of the short Illumina reads, to finally reach a completer and more precise draft genome sequence. Phylogenetic and comparative genomics analysis suggest that this strain in more related to Fusarium tricinctum species complex than Fusarium lateritium, as the symptoms initially suggested. Thus, it could be speculated that a new Fusarium species infecting Corylus avellana has been found. Further studies would better clarify its biology, epidemiology, infection mechanisms and host spectrum, with the aim to define its potential risks and to develop a specific control strategy. URL BibTeX@inproceedings{Grotttoli_2021_nanopore, author = "Grottoli, Alessandro and Turco, Silvia and Drais, Mounira Inas and Faino, Luigi and Reverberi, Massimo and Cristofori, Valerio and Mazzaglia, Angelo", title = "Draft genome sequence of a new Fusarium isolate collected from hazelnut in Central Italy (extended abstract)", booktitle = "Nanopore Community Meeting", address = "Online", month = "Dec", year = 2021, url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/P2.pdf", abstract = "In summery 2019, during a phytosanitary monitoring of a hazelnut orchard located in the Tuscia area (province of Viterbo, Latium, Italy), diseased hazelnuts were found and collected for further studies. The symptoms resembled the previously described Nut Gray Necrosis (NGN), mainly associated to Fusarium lateritium, including brown-greyish spots at the bottom of the nuts progressing upwards to the apex, and of necrotic patches on the bracts and less often on the petioles. This disease has a potentially significant economic impact on the Italian hazelnut cultivation, since its large area of 85,000 ha, covering Campania, Latium, Sicily, and Piedmont, makes Italy one of the largest world hazelnut producers, together with Turkey, Spain, USA and Greece. For this reason, we performed a whole genome sequencing of the strain isolated from hazelnut, taking advantage of the long reads produced by Nanopore technology in combination with the higher precision of the short Illumina reads, to finally reach a completer and more precise draft genome sequence. Phylogenetic and comparative genomics analysis suggest that this strain in more related to Fusarium tricinctum species complex than Fusarium lateritium, as the symptoms initially suggested. Thus, it could be speculated that a new Fusarium species infecting Corylus avellana has been found. Further studies would better clarify its biology, epidemiology, infection mechanisms and host spectrum, with the aim to define its potential risks and to develop a specific control strategy." }Alessandro Grottoli, Silvia Turco, Luigi Faino, Massimo Reverberi, Valerio Cristofori and Angelo Mazzaglia. Draft genome sequence of Fusarium lateritium isolated from hazelnut is central Italy (extended abstract). In European Fusarium Seminar. June 2021.
Abstract Corylus avellana L. (hazelnut) is a nut species cultivated in Italy in the region of Campania, Latium, Sicily and Piedmont. This large area of about 85,000 ha makes Italy one of the largest world hazelnut producers, together with Turkey, Spain, USA and Greece. In the early summer of 2000, a new symptomatology, a severe fruit drop, was observed in several hazelnut orchards located in the Latium Region, in central Italy. The symptomatic fruits were characterized by a brown grayish necrotic spot/patch on the nutshell, bracts and less often on the petioles. Based on the symptoms observed on affected fruits, the disease was named nut gray necrosis (NGN). In early 2010, Fusarium lateritium (Fl) was first reported as the causal agent of NGN on hazelnut in Italy while already reported also as the causative agent of hazelnut twig cankers and fruit rot on walnut and olive. Although several Fl pathogenicity tests have been conducted, supporting the speculation of the involvement of Fl in the NGN disease and hazelnut twig canker, molecular and transcriptional analysis of Fl mechanisms, specially involved during the early and late stages of infection, have not been conducted. Here we evaluated different de novo assembly approaches of an Italian Fl strain, isolated from a nutshell coming from a hazelnut orchard located in Latium Region, in order to obtain a complete high quality annotated assembly. The final result could represent a first important step to better understand the biology, epidemiology and thus, infection mechanisms, of Fl. Furthermore, this resource could be a milestone to arrange a focused and specific control disease strategy. URL BibTeX@inproceedings{Grotttoli_2021, author = "Grottoli, Alessandro and Turco, Silvia and Faino, Luigi and Reverberi, Massimo and Cristofori, Valerio and Mazzaglia, Angelo", title = "Draft genome sequence of Fusarium lateritium isolated from hazelnut is central Italy (extended abstract)", booktitle = "European Fusarium Seminar", address = "Ghent, Belgium", month = "Jun", year = 2021, url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/P1.pdf", abstract = "Corylus avellana L. (hazelnut) is a nut species cultivated in Italy in the region of Campania, Latium, Sicily and Piedmont. This large area of about 85,000 ha makes Italy one of the largest world hazelnut producers, together with Turkey, Spain, USA and Greece. In the early summer of 2000, a new symptomatology, a severe fruit drop, was observed in several hazelnut orchards located in the Latium Region, in central Italy. The symptomatic fruits were characterized by a brown grayish necrotic spot/patch on the nutshell, bracts and less often on the petioles. Based on the symptoms observed on affected fruits, the disease was named nut gray necrosis (NGN). In early 2010, Fusarium lateritium (Fl) was first reported as the causal agent of NGN on hazelnut in Italy while already reported also as the causative agent of hazelnut twig cankers and fruit rot on walnut and olive. Although several Fl pathogenicity tests have been conducted, supporting the speculation of the involvement of Fl in the NGN disease and hazelnut twig canker, molecular and transcriptional analysis of Fl mechanisms, specially involved during the early and late stages of infection, have not been conducted. Here we evaluated different de novo assembly approaches of an Italian Fl strain, isolated from a nutshell coming from a hazelnut orchard located in Latium Region, in order to obtain a complete high quality annotated assembly. The final result could represent a first important step to better understand the biology, epidemiology and thus, infection mechanisms, of Fl. Furthermore, this resource could be a milestone to arrange a focused and specific control disease strategy." }Alessandro Grottoli, Silvia Turco, Luigi Faino, Massimo Reverberi, Valerio Cristofori and Angelo Mazzaglia. Draft genome sequence of a new Fusarium isolate collected from hazelnut in Central Italy (extended abstract). In XXVI SIPaV Congress. 2021.
Abstract In summery 2019, during a survey on the health status of an hazelnut orchard located in the Tuscia area (province of Viterbo, Latium, Italy), symptomatic hazelnut were found and collected for further studies. The symptoms resembled the one previously described as Nut Gray Necrosis (NGN) associated to Fusarium lateritium , including brown greyish spots at the bottom of the nuts progressing upwards to the apex, and of necrotic patches on the bracts and less often on the petioles. This disease could have an economic impact on the Itali an hazelnut cultivation, since its large area of 85,000 ha, covering Campania, Latium, Sicily and Piedmont, makes Italy one of the largest world hazelnut producers, together with Turkey, Spain, USA and Greece. For this reason, we performed a whole genome s equencing of the strain isolated from hazelnut, taking advantage of the long Nanopore reads technology in combination with the higher precision of the Illumina reads, to finally reach a more complete and precise draft genome sequence. Phylogenetic and comp arative genomics analysis suggest that this isolate in more related to Fusarium tricinctum species complex than Fusarium lateritium as symptoms initially suggested and thus, it could be speculated that a new species infecting Corylus avellana has been foun d. Further studies would better clarify its biology, epidemiology, infection mechanisms and host spectrum, with the aim to define its potential risks and develop a specific control strategy in time. URL BibTeX@inproceedings{Grotttoli_2021_sipav, author = "Grottoli, Alessandro and Turco, Silvia and Faino, Luigi and Reverberi, Massimo and Cristofori, Valerio and Mazzaglia, Angelo", title = "Draft genome sequence of a new Fusarium isolate collected from hazelnut in Central Italy (extended abstract)", booktitle = "XXVI SIPaV Congress", address = "Online", month = "Sept", year = 2021, url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/P4.pdf", abstract = "In summery 2019, during a survey on the health status of an hazelnut orchard located in the Tuscia area (province of Viterbo, Latium, Italy), symptomatic hazelnut were found and collected for further studies. The symptoms resembled the one previously described as Nut Gray Necrosis (NGN) associated to Fusarium lateritium , including brown greyish spots at the bottom of the nuts progressing upwards to the apex, and of necrotic patches on the bracts and less often on the petioles. This disease could have an economic impact on the Itali an hazelnut cultivation, since its large area of 85,000 ha, covering Campania, Latium, Sicily and Piedmont, makes Italy one of the largest world hazelnut producers, together with Turkey, Spain, USA and Greece. For this reason, we performed a whole genome s equencing of the strain isolated from hazelnut, taking advantage of the long Nanopore reads technology in combination with the higher precision of the Illumina reads, to finally reach a more complete and precise draft genome sequence. Phylogenetic and comp arative genomics analysis suggest that this isolate in more related to Fusarium tricinctum species complex than Fusarium lateritium as symptoms initially suggested and thus, it could be speculated that a new species infecting Corylus avellana has been foun d. Further studies would better clarify its biology, epidemiology, infection mechanisms and host spectrum, with the aim to define its potential risks and develop a specific control strategy in time." }Mounira Inas Drais, A Faluschi, Silvia Turco, Leonardo Varvaro, Valerio Cristofori and Angelo Mazzaglia. Morphological, physiological and molecular characterization of Monostichella coryli, the causal agent of hazelnut anthracnose (extended abstract). In XXVI SIPaV Congress. 2021.
Abstract During 2019 and 2020, repeated field surveys were carried out in hazelnut orchards located in the Viterbo province, in Lazio region (Italy). Dry rot of buds, desiccation of twigs, and necrosis of leaf lamina were diffusely observed on hazelnut trees, particularly on cv. Nocchione. As result of fungal isolation from symptomatic tissues, one morphotype was persistently obtained from the margin of lesions of collected samples. The analysis of morphological features of the fungus grown on malt extract agar (MEA), potato dextrose agar (PDA), corn meal agar (CMA) and oatmeal agar (OA), provided for the attribution to the species Monostichella coryli. This initial identification was molecularly confirmed by sequencing the partial large subunit rDNA, the internal transcribed spacer region and partial beta-tubulin region and blasting the sequences in the NCBI database. Pathogenicity tests proved that the fungus is able to multiply and systematically invade artificially inoculated hazelnut tissues and incite disease symptoms on both Nocchione and Tonda Gentile Romana cultivars. In vitro assays demonstrated that environmental conditions, such as temperature and relative humidity influence growth rate, sporulation and conidial germination and allowed the definition of mathematical functions describing optimal, suboptimal and critical condition for these biological facets. Findings in this study provide useful information for epidemiology studies on hazelnut anthracnose and will help to choose the appropriate control strategies for the management of the disease. URL BibTeX@inproceedings{Drais_2021, author = "Drais, Mounira Inas and Faluschi, A. and Turco, Silvia and Varvaro, Leonardo and Cristofori, Valerio and Mazzaglia, Angelo", title = "Morphological, physiological and molecular characterization of Monostichella coryli, the causal agent of hazelnut anthracnose (extended abstract)", booktitle = "XXVI SIPaV Congress", address = "Online", month = "Sept", year = 2021, url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/P3.pdf", abstract = "During 2019 and 2020, repeated field surveys were carried out in hazelnut orchards located in the Viterbo province, in Lazio region (Italy). Dry rot of buds, desiccation of twigs, and necrosis of leaf lamina were diffusely observed on hazelnut trees, particularly on cv. Nocchione. As result of fungal isolation from symptomatic tissues, one morphotype was persistently obtained from the margin of lesions of collected samples. The analysis of morphological features of the fungus grown on malt extract agar (MEA), potato dextrose agar (PDA), corn meal agar (CMA) and oatmeal agar (OA), provided for the attribution to the species Monostichella coryli. This initial identification was molecularly confirmed by sequencing the partial large subunit rDNA, the internal transcribed spacer region and partial beta-tubulin region and blasting the sequences in the NCBI database. Pathogenicity tests proved that the fungus is able to multiply and systematically invade artificially inoculated hazelnut tissues and incite disease symptoms on both Nocchione and Tonda Gentile Romana cultivars. In vitro assays demonstrated that environmental conditions, such as temperature and relative humidity influence growth rate, sporulation and conidial germination and allowed the definition of mathematical functions describing optimal, suboptimal and critical condition for these biological facets. Findings in this study provide useful information for epidemiology studies on hazelnut anthracnose and will help to choose the appropriate control strategies for the management of the disease." }Nicolas Bono Rossello, Emanuele Garone, Andrea Gasparri and Renzo Carpio. Information-Based Path Planning for UAV Orchard Coverage. In 38th Benelux Meeting on Systems and Control. March 2019.
Abstract Unmanned aerial robots (UAVs) are commonly used to perform field coverage activities. In certain applications, as in precision farming, these vehicles must fly at very low speeds and not surpass certain altitude limits. With these constraints, covering vast areas with a single flight becomes unrealistic in terms of flight time. This situation is encountered in the EU project PANTHEON ”Precision farming of hazelnut orchards”, where the farming areas exceed hundreds of hectares.In this contribution, we present a path planning strategy to cover an orchard while prioritizing the amount of information obtained during each flight. In the PANTHEON project, a Kalman filter is used to estimate the current health status of the plants. This observer works with temporally and spatially sparse measurements given by fixed soil sensors and the cameras mounted on the UAV. In this work, we plan to decide on the trajectories of the UAV such that the performance of the observer is improved. URL BibTeX@inproceedings{bono_rossello_information_based, author = "Bono Rossello, Nicolas and Garone, Emanuele and Gasparri, Andrea and Carpio, Renzo", title = "Information-Based Path Planning for UAV Orchard Coverage", booktitle = "38th Benelux Meeting on Systems and Control", address = "Lommel, Belgium", month = "March", year = 2019, url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/10.pdf", abstract = "Unmanned aerial robots (UAVs) are commonly used to perform field coverage activities. In certain applications, as in precision farming, these vehicles must fly at very low speeds and not surpass certain altitude limits. With these constraints, covering vast areas with a single flight becomes unrealistic in terms of flight time. This situation is encountered in the EU project PANTHEON ”Precision farming of hazelnut orchards”, where the farming areas exceed hundreds of hectares.In this contribution, we present a path planning strategy to cover an orchard while prioritizing the amount of information obtained during each flight. In the PANTHEON project, a Kalman filter is used to estimate the current health status of the plants. This observer works with temporally and spatially sparse measurements given by fixed soil sensors and the cameras mounted on the UAV. In this work, we plan to decide on the trajectories of the UAV such that the performance of the observer is improved." }Andrea Gasparri, Giovanni Ulivi, Nicolas Bono Rossello and Emanuele Garone. The H2020 project Pantheon: precision farming of hazelnut orchards (extended abstract). In Convegno Automatica. September 2018.
Abstract Agriculture has commonly been pioneer in the use of new technologies to improve productivity. Modern hazelnut farming generally is carried out using regular layouts to allow the mechanization of many field operations, as it is the use of tractors and specialized agricultural machinery. However, there are still time consuming and labor-intense agronomic activities that could be clearly improved. Inspired by the real needs of the consortium member FERRERO, project PANTHEON focuses on the management of large hazelnut orchards, where, to the best of our knowledge, precision farming techniques have not been investigated yet. The main drawback of current hazelnuts farming procedures is that, for plantations larger than 10 ha, performing a per-plant monitoring and responding to the needs of each single plant is very challenging. In current best practices, decisions are often made by assessing the status of a few representative plants and then extending the treatments to the entire sectors were these plants are located, which in the case of large plantations, may mean areas up to 50 ha. The goal of project PANTHEON is to develop the agricultural equivalent of an industrial Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to be used for the precision farming of large orchards of hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) URL BibTeX@inproceedings{gasparri_h2020_2018, author = "Gasparri, Andrea and Ulivi, Giovanni and Bono Rossello, Nicolas and Garone, Emanuele", title = "The {H}2020 project {Pantheon}: precision farming of hazelnut orchards (extended abstract)", booktitle = "Convegno Automatica", address = "Florence, Italy", month = "Sep", year = 2018, url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/7.pdf", abstract = "Agriculture has commonly been pioneer in the use of new technologies to improve productivity. Modern hazelnut farming generally is carried out using regular layouts to allow the mechanization of many field operations, as it is the use of tractors and specialized agricultural machinery. However, there are still time consuming and labor-intense agronomic activities that could be clearly improved. Inspired by the real needs of the consortium member FERRERO, project PANTHEON focuses on the management of large hazelnut orchards, where, to the best of our knowledge, precision farming techniques have not been investigated yet. The main drawback of current hazelnuts farming procedures is that, for plantations larger than 10 ha, performing a per-plant monitoring and responding to the needs of each single plant is very challenging. In current best practices, decisions are often made by assessing the status of a few representative plants and then extending the treatments to the entire sectors were these plants are located, which in the case of large plantations, may mean areas up to 50 ha. The goal of project PANTHEON is to develop the agricultural equivalent of an industrial Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to be used for the precision farming of large orchards of hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.)" }Mario Contarini, Valerio Cristofori, Cristian Silvestri, Luca Rossini, Leonardo Varvaro, Andrea Gasparri, Emanuele Garone, Thomas Udelhoven, Rebecca Retzlaff, Sebastian Lamprecht, Emanuele Graziani, Michela Pecchia, Laura Giustarini, Cristina Carletti, Giovanni Ulivi, Riccardo Torlone, Alessandro Albino Frezza and Stefano Speranza. PANTHEON (Precision Farming of Hazelnut Orchards) for the improvement of integrated pest management (IPM) effectiveness (extended abstract). In XI European Congress of Entomology. July 2018.
Abstract The aim of this project is to develop the agricultural equivalent of an industrial Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to be used for the precision farming of large orchards of hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.). Unmanned aerial platform (UAV) and ground vehicles able to navigate in the orchard will be equipped to perform autonomously required operations as the collection of data on the plant growth habits, yield and on its phytosanitary status. Particularly, for the crop protection action it will be developed a system useful for the quantification of pest and disease incidence in the orchard, and for optimization of the quantities and the typology of pesticides used for insect pests and disease control. This will result in an increased effectiveness of Integrated Pest Managements (IPM URL BibTeX@inproceedings{contarini_pantheon_2018-1, author = "Contarini, Mario and Cristofori, Valerio and Silvestri, Cristian and Rossini, Luca and Varvaro, Leonardo and Gasparri, Andrea and Garone, Emanuele and Udelhoven, Thomas and Retzlaff, Rebecca and Lamprecht, Sebastian and Graziani, Emanuele and Pecchia, Michela and Giustarini, Laura and Carletti, Cristina and Ulivi, Giovanni and Torlone, Riccardo and Albino Frezza, Alessandro and Speranza, Stefano", title = "{PANTHEON} ({Precision} {Farming} of {Hazelnut} {Orchards}) for the improvement of integrated pest management ({IPM}) effectiveness (extended abstract)", booktitle = "XI European Congress of Entomology", address = "Naples, Italy", month = "Jul", year = 2018, url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/4.pdf", abstract = "The aim of this project is to develop the agricultural equivalent of an industrial Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to be used for the precision farming of large orchards of hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.). Unmanned aerial platform (UAV) and ground vehicles able to navigate in the orchard will be equipped to perform autonomously required operations as the collection of data on the plant growth habits, yield and on its phytosanitary status. Particularly, for the crop protection action it will be developed a system useful for the quantification of pest and disease incidence in the orchard, and for optimization of the quantities and the typology of pesticides used for insect pests and disease control. This will result in an increased effectiveness of Integrated Pest Managements (IPM" }Valerio Cristofori, Stefano Speranza, Cristian Silvestri, Mario Contarini, Leonardo Varvaro, Andrea Gasparri, Emanuele Garone, Thomas Udelhoven, Rebecca Retzlaff, Sebastian Lamprecht, Emanuele Graziani, Michela Pecchia, Laura Giustarini, Daniele Galli, Cristina Carletti, Giovanni Ulivi, Riccardo Torlone and Alessandro Albino Frezza. PANtHEOn-precision farming in hazelnut orchards (abstract). In Acta Italus Hortus XII giornate Scientifiche SOI. June 2018.
Abstract The aim of PANtHEOn is to develop the agricultural equivalent of an industrial Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to be used for the precision farming in orchards of hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.). By taking advantage of the technological advancements in the fields of robotics, remote sensing and big-data management, the objective is to design an integrated system where a relatively limited number of heterogeneous unmanned robotic components move within the orchards collecting data and performing some of the most common farming operations. The information will be stored in a central operative unit that will integrate the data coming from the different robotic units to perform automatic feedback actions (e.g. to regulate the irrigation system) and to support the decisions of agronomists and farmers. We expect that the proposed SCADA system will be able to acquire information at the resolution of the single plant. This will permit to drastically increase the detection of possible limiting factors for each individual plant, such as lack of water or pests and diseases affecting the plant health, and to react accordingly. Compared to the current knowledge in precision farming, we believe that the proposed SCADA infrastructure represents a relevant step ahead in the context of orchards management. In fact, the capability of monitoring the state and the evolution of each single tree will be the enabling technology to allow more focused interventions. This will result in a better average state of health of the orchard, and in an increased effectiveness of Integrated Pest Managements (IPM). In conclusion, the main advantages of this architecture are: 1) Increase the hazelnut orchard production 2) Decrease in chemical inputs usage 3) High efficiency water usage 4) Simplified orchard management. The outcome of the project will be validated through a final demo on a real-world (1:1 scale) hazelnut orchards URL BibTeX@inproceedings{cristofori_pantheon-precision_2018, author = "Cristofori, Valerio and Speranza, Stefano and Silvestri, Cristian and Contarini, Mario and Varvaro, Leonardo and Gasparri, Andrea and Garone, Emanuele and Udelhoven, Thomas and Retzlaff, Rebecca and Lamprecht, Sebastian and Graziani, Emanuele and Pecchia, Michela and Giustarini, Laura and Galli, Daniele and Carletti, Cristina and Ulivi, Giovanni and Torlone, Riccardo and Albino Frezza, Alessandro", title = "{PANtHEOn}-precision farming in hazelnut orchards (abstract)", booktitle = "Acta Italus Hortus XII giornate Scientifiche SOI", address = "Bologna, Italy", month = "Jun", year = 2018, url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/3.pdf", abstract = "The aim of PANtHEOn is to develop the agricultural equivalent of an industrial Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to be used for the precision farming in orchards of hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.). By taking advantage of the technological advancements in the fields of robotics, remote sensing and big-data management, the objective is to design an integrated system where a relatively limited number of heterogeneous unmanned robotic components move within the orchards collecting data and performing some of the most common farming operations. The information will be stored in a central operative unit that will integrate the data coming from the different robotic units to perform automatic feedback actions (e.g. to regulate the irrigation system) and to support the decisions of agronomists and farmers. We expect that the proposed SCADA system will be able to acquire information at the resolution of the single plant. This will permit to drastically increase the detection of possible limiting factors for each individual plant, such as lack of water or pests and diseases affecting the plant health, and to react accordingly. Compared to the current knowledge in precision farming, we believe that the proposed SCADA infrastructure represents a relevant step ahead in the context of orchards management. In fact, the capability of monitoring the state and the evolution of each single tree will be the enabling technology to allow more focused interventions. This will result in a better average state of health of the orchard, and in an increased effectiveness of Integrated Pest Managements (IPM). In conclusion, the main advantages of this architecture are: 1) Increase the hazelnut orchard production 2) Decrease in chemical inputs usage 3) High efficiency water usage 4) Simplified orchard management. The outcome of the project will be validated through a final demo on a real-world (1:1 scale) hazelnut orchards" }Mario Contarini, Valerio Cristofori, Cristian Silvestri, Luca Rossini, Andrea Gasparri, Emanuele Garone, Thomas Udelhoven, Rebecca Retzlaff, Sebastian Lamprecht, Emanuele Graziani, Michela Pecchia, Laura Giustarini, Cristina Carletti, Gianni Ulivi, Riccardo Torlone, Alessandro Albino Frezza and Stefano Speranza. PANTHEON (Precision Farming of Hazelnut Orchards) for the improvement of integrated pest management (IPM) effectiveness. In 70th International Symptosium on Crop Protection. May 2018.
Abstract We are presenting PANtHEOn, a project funded by the H2020-SFS-2016-2017 Call, Research and Innovation Action, Topic SFS-05-2017, which is aimed at the development of the agricultural equivalent of an industrial Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to be used for the precision farming of large orchards of hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.). The project will be focused on the develop of unmanned aerial platform (UAV) and ground vehicles able to navigate in the orchard and to perform autonomously required operations. These instruments are useful to collect data on the plant growth habits, yield and on its phytosanitary status. All data will be sent to a central unit where an expert system will be able to assess the plant’s health and to suggest the decision-making process concerning the required agronomic interventions. The latter are based on the measured indices and on the historical data of each plant. The crop protection action will consist in the monitoring of pests and diseases incidence in the orchard and in the quantification of the intervention threshold for each damage. The field data will be also used to calibrate the indicators, based on remote sensing data, and to optimize the quantities and the typology of pesticides used for insect pests and disease control. The considered biotic stress factors are: Phytoptus avellanae; Curculio nucum; true bugs (Halyomorpha halys, Gonocerus acuteangulatus, Palomena prasina, Piezodorus lituratus, Raphygaster nebulosa, Nezara viridula and Dolycorum baccarum) involved in economic detriment due to the quality losses by kernel abortion, malformation and emergence of unpleasant flavor; Cytospora canker, caused by the ascomycete Cytospora curricula; Fusarium lateritium; the bacteria Pseudomonas avellanae and Xanthomonas arborol pv. corylina. In conclusion, one goal of this project is to improve the average health condition of the orchard, and to increase the effectiveness of the IPM techniques for a more sustainable management of the ecosystem. URL BibTeX@inproceedings{contarini_pantheon_2018, author = "Contarini, Mario and Cristofori, Valerio and Silvestri, Cristian and Rossini, Luca and Gasparri, Andrea and Garone, Emanuele and Udelhoven, Thomas and Retzlaff, Rebecca and Lamprecht, Sebastian and Graziani, Emanuele and Pecchia, Michela and Giustarini, Laura and Carletti, Cristina and Ulivi, Gianni and Torlone, Riccardo and Albino Frezza, Alessandro and Speranza, Stefano", title = "{PANTHEON} ({Precision} {Farming} of {Hazelnut} {Orchards}) for the improvement of integrated pest management ({IPM}) effectiveness", booktitle = "70th International Symptosium on Crop Protection", address = "Ghent, Belgium", month = "May", year = 2018, url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/2.pdf", abstract = "We are presenting PANtHEOn, a project funded by the H2020-SFS-2016-2017 Call, Research and Innovation Action, Topic SFS-05-2017, which is aimed at the development of the agricultural equivalent of an industrial Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to be used for the precision farming of large orchards of hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.). The project will be focused on the develop of unmanned aerial platform (UAV) and ground vehicles able to navigate in the orchard and to perform autonomously required operations. These instruments are useful to collect data on the plant growth habits, yield and on its phytosanitary status. All data will be sent to a central unit where an expert system will be able to assess the plant’s health and to suggest the decision-making process concerning the required agronomic interventions. The latter are based on the measured indices and on the historical data of each plant. The crop protection action will consist in the monitoring of pests and diseases incidence in the orchard and in the quantification of the intervention threshold for each damage. The field data will be also used to calibrate the indicators, based on remote sensing data, and to optimize the quantities and the typology of pesticides used for insect pests and disease control. The considered biotic stress factors are: Phytoptus avellanae; Curculio nucum; true bugs (Halyomorpha halys, Gonocerus acuteangulatus, Palomena prasina, Piezodorus lituratus, Raphygaster nebulosa, Nezara viridula and Dolycorum baccarum) involved in economic detriment due to the quality losses by kernel abortion, malformation and emergence of unpleasant flavor; Cytospora canker, caused by the ascomycete Cytospora curricula; Fusarium lateritium; the bacteria Pseudomonas avellanae and Xanthomonas arborol pv. corylina. In conclusion, one goal of this project is to improve the average health condition of the orchard, and to increase the effectiveness of the IPM techniques for a more sustainable management of the ecosystem." }Nicolas Bono Rossello, Emanuele Garone, Andrea Gasparri and Renzo Carpio. A Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) system in agriculture and related path planning problems. In 37th Benelux Meeting on Systems and Control. March 2018.
Abstract Agriculture has commonly been pioneer in the use of new technologies to improve productivity. This contribution aims at presenting some of the research activities withing the H2020 project PANTHEON. This project is to develop the agricultural equivalent of an industrial Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to be used for the precision farming of orchards. By taking advantage of the technological advancements in the fields of control, robotics, remote sensing, and big-data management, our objective is to design an integrated system where a relatively limited number of heterogeneous unmanned robotic components (including terrestrial and aerial robots) move within the orchard to collect data and perform typical farming operations. The information will be collected and stored in a central operative unit that will integrate the data coming from the different robotic (ground and aerial) vehicles to perform automatic feedback actions (e.g. to regulate the irrigation system) and to support the decisions of the agronomists and farmers in charge of the orchard. URL BibTeX@inproceedings{bono_rossello_supervisory_2018-1, author = "Bono Rossello, Nicolas and Garone, Emanuele and Gasparri, Andrea and Carpio, Renzo", title = "A {Supervisory} {Control} {And} {Data} {Acquisition} ({SCADA}) system in agriculture and related path planning problems", booktitle = "37th Benelux Meeting on Systems and Control", address = "Soesterberg, The Netherlands", month = "March", year = 2018, url = "http://pantheon.inf.uniroma3.it/images/Publications/1.pdf", abstract = "Agriculture has commonly been pioneer in the use of new technologies to improve productivity. This contribution aims at presenting some of the research activities withing the H2020 project PANTHEON. This project is to develop the agricultural equivalent of an industrial Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to be used for the precision farming of orchards. By taking advantage of the technological advancements in the fields of control, robotics, remote sensing, and big-data management, our objective is to design an integrated system where a relatively limited number of heterogeneous unmanned robotic components (including terrestrial and aerial robots) move within the orchard to collect data and perform typical farming operations. The information will be collected and stored in a central operative unit that will integrate the data coming from the different robotic (ground and aerial) vehicles to perform automatic feedback actions (e.g. to regulate the irrigation system) and to support the decisions of the agronomists and farmers in charge of the orchard." }
