Innovative Research

Innovative Research

From farm to forest, Songlin Fei has built a career and better life

When Songlin Fei was a young boy in China, his parents took him to a local fortune teller to assess his balance in the five elements that many Chinese people believe make up everything in the world. Their son, they were told, had enough fire, earth, water and metal, but he lacked wood.

Maybe this wasn’t a surprise. Fei’s family lived on a delta in southeast China where cropland and rice paddies stretched as far as the eye could see. Scanning his family’s property and the landscape beyond, Fei might have seen only a handful of trees.

The Future of Farming Relies on Internet Connectivity

Farms could contribute billions more dollars to the U.S. economy with the help of precision agriculture technology, but this can’t happen without more broadband, said experts during a National Telecommunications and Information Administration webinar.

Ag-Analytics opens branch in Convergence Center, encouraging collaboration

“Digital agriculture and data science are important tools for our farmers in Indiana,” said Karen Plaut, the Glenn W. Sample Dean of the College of Agriculture. “We look forward to finding opportunities for our researchers, Extension specialists and students to collaborate with Ag-Analytics as they join us on campus as part of the Convergence Center.”

Purdue names Songlin Fei Dean’s Chair of Remote Sensing

The sheer size of the world’s forests makes measuring them with any accuracy a significant challenge. But it’s a challenge Purdue’s Songlin Fei has risen to, knowing that those forests impact the global economy, climate change mitigation, wildlife conservation, recreation and more.

Purdue University to collaborate in NSF-funded Engineering Research Center to develop the Internet of Things for precision agriculture

Purdue University will be a partner in a new National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Center created to develop advanced agricultural technologies to address food, energy and water security challenges.

With a five-year, $26 million grant, the NSF has established the Engineering Research Center for the Internet of Things for Precision Agriculture (IoT4Ag). Engineering Research Centers (ERCs) are NSF’s flagship engineering program for convergent research to address large-scale societal challenges.

Ecologists preserve earth’s biodiversity with sound studies using edge computing and data analytics solutions

Researchers at the Center for Global Soundscapes at Purdue University record audio across the globe and accelerate ecological insights through edge computing and data analytics capabilities from HPE.

Purdue and HPE: Feeding a planet using data analytics at the edge

If growers can analyze data from remote farmlands in real time, they can make better decisions, grow more crops, and feed more people. Learn how Purdue University is accelerating the processing of agricultural data at the edge to boost production.

Purdue plant imaging facility named for Ag Alumni Seed

Ag Alumni Seed, a seed technology company specializing in hybrid popcorn, will fund a second growth chamber that will more than double the facility’s plant holding capacity. The 7,300-square-foot phenotyping facility – open since February 2018 – complements Purdue’s field-based phenotyping capabilities by allowing a rapid, non-destructive alternative to exploring plant traits under precise environmental control.

Young farmer working in a cornfield, inspecting and tuning irrigation center pivot sprinkler system on smartphone.

Well-connected in the field

“We’re in a progression of connectivity,” explained Richard Grant. “Purdue is giving us the opportunity to enhance the linkage between the increasingly connected world and what we’ve always been doing.”

Matt Bechdol, an alumnus of Purdue University’s College of Agriculture and CEO of GRYFN, presented the company’s technology in September at the Forbes AgTech Summit in Indianapolis. (Image provided by AgriNovus Indiana)

Multi-sensor drone technology for plant phenotyping receives $4.5 million from energy agency

A Purdue University-affiliated agbioscience startup is creating technology to help meet the growing global demand for bioenergy and, in partnership with Purdue, has received new support from the U.S. government.

Innovative Research

As big data continues to redefine processes and possibilities in agriculture, Purdue University helps lead the way through innovative, interdisciplinary research. This convergence of technology in agriculture is driving the industry forward across many applications.

Agriculture is an area ripe for technological acceleration; however, the data processing, computation, communication and storage requirements of research programs expands exponentially. To advance the field, Purdue partners with programs, organizations, and initiatives to reach shared objectives. Purdue is collaborating with information technology companies like Hewlett Packard Enterprise to combine Internet of Things (IoT) and high-performance computing to gather, transmit and analyze field and lab data to reduce the time to discovery.

Researchers in forestry, plants, animals, natural resources and human well-being incorporate the newest applications of technology to make faster and more informed decisions than ever before.

Revolutionary imaging systems raise the speed and accuracy of plant data collection through phenotyping, contributing to the fight against global hunger. UAVs pair with high-speed internet to capture and transfer valuable information in real time. Digital agriculture provides new ways to monitor livestock without human intervention, optimizing the contribution and well-being of individual animals. By incorporating the tools of digital agriculture, we can monitor and preserve forests and natural resources. New technologies and their adoption present opportunities to collect and transmit data in increasingly remote areas.

Open Ag Technologies and Systems Group (OATS)

The OATS Center is bringing an open source culture to agriculture and believes data exchange among systems, people, and projects is key for agricultural sustainability. OATS addresses fundamental concerns and helps open-source communities thrive.

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Open Ag Data Alliance (OADA)

The Open Ag Data Alliance is an open-source project designed to bring interoperability, security, and privacy to agricultural data. This open standards software will establish secure data exchange protocols and help farmers access and control their data.

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Institute for Plant Sciences

The Institute for Plant Sciences strengthens plant-research programs and Purdue’s ability to deploy discoveries for global impact. The institute expanded plant biology, produced two state-of-the-art plant phenotyping facilities and established an IoT test bed for digital agriculture.

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