Products Environmental Control Handling Systems
Ecoation introduces KENNIS Grower Assistant

With an official launch date of November 15, Ecoation Innovative Solutions Inc. is introducing the newly patented KENNIS Grower Assistant.

KENNIS builds on the company’s award-winning OKO robotic platform by incorporating machine learning, next-gen artificial intelligence (AI) and intelligence augmentation (IA) technology to provide an accurate stereo-spatiotemporal understanding of not only what is happening at every cubic metre of the greenhouse, but why it is happening while offering suggestions on what to do next.

“We’re creating new information by sending sensors everywhere, and then boiling it down into actionable intelligence,” says SVP of Data Science, Dr. Greg Stewart. “We’re not looking to replace the human component, but rather to support, augment, and extend what they are able to see and provide insights to better inform their decisions.”

For example, OKO Digital creates a two-way communication pathway between the individual on the ground and the grower’s office, so that observations can be communicated in near real-time and tasks can be assigned immediately. Incorporating KENNIS into OKO Digital will build on human observation and allow the grower to use the AI/IA algorithm to reduce the seemingly endless data supply into a shortlist of potential root causes and suggested action.

In the illustration above, the red rectangle brings the grower’s attention to an area near the greenhouse wall which is more humid than the rest of the greenhouse (blue rectangle) in the 5th plot. Additionally, Russet Mite pressure is also much higher in the dry area (blue rectangle) as illustrated by the difference between the red and blue time trends in the middle plot. With no significant corresponding variability in stem density or temperature, KENNIS has discovered a relationship between humidity and pest pressure and indicates areas of the greenhouse that are affected. With this insight, a grower could choose to augment their IPM program by adjusting their climate parameters and physical infrastructure (e.g. individual fan speeds or overhead misters) to maintain a higher humidity in regions that have consistently low humidity, thus creating a less favorable environment for this pest, and decreasing the dependence on treatments to control it

Full Video: SVP Data Science, Dr. Greg Stewart, on the KENNIS Grower Assistant

“Having a diagnostic tool that allows us to have a deeper look at what is going on in the greenhouse and why certain things are happening is basically going to change everything,” says founder and CEO, Dr. Saber Miresmailli. “This means that [growers] will have the ultimate visibility into their operations and the causal effects that create the situations they have to resolve. Another group who can vastly benefit from this invention are seed companies who can fast track experimentations and confirm their desirable traits under various conditions with KENNIS and find what does it take for a particular gene to express.”

Source: Ecoation