The Digitisation of Agriculture: a Survey of Research Activities on Smart Farming

• Main Authors: Manlio Bacco, Paolo Barsocchi, Erina Ferro, Alberto Gotta, Massimiliano Ruggeri
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2019-09-01
• Series: Array
• Subjects: Smart farming; Precision farming; MEC; Cloud computing; Edge computing; 5G
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590005619300098

The impulse towards a larger introduction of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the agricultural field is currently experiencing its momentum, as digitisation has large potentialities to provide benefits for both producers and consumers; on the other hand, pushing technological solutions into a rural context encounters several challenges. In this work, we provide a survey of the most recent research activities, in the form of both research projects and scientific literature, with the objective of showing the already achieved results, the current investigations, and the still open challenges, both technical and non technical. We mainly focus on the EU territory, identifying threats and concerns, and then looking at existing and upcoming solutions to overcome those barriers.