The 4TU.GreenSensors project organized its 2nd meeting on 22 April, 2024, at the TUDelft campus. Following up on the kick-off meeting held in September 2023, the focus of the 2nd meeting was primarily on explicitly defining the project’s goal while leveraging the diverse expertises involved, which was initially recognized as a challenge.
The multidisciplinary nature of the expert team, as identified during the kick-off meeting, was recognized as both a challenge and an opportunity for collaboration. A detailed discussion continued to delineate the final project demonstration in soil sensing for potato crop management. However, while intermediate demonstrations were deemed a promising milestone, it seemed premature to establish a particular demonstration model, necessitating a deeper understanding of the toolboxes available to or each team can have shortly.
Later on in the day, PhD students presented their preliminary research proposals (about biodegradable acoustic sensing, force sensor, pathogen detector), which were critiqued and strengthened with valuable feedback for alignment with overall project goals and objectives.
Suggestions were made to organize more frequent meetings among tenure-trackers and PhDs, as well as a day-long visit to an innovative farm in the Netherlands to enhance understanding of agri-food production systems among all partners. Given the diversity of the consortium, the 4TU.GreenSensors team recognized the need for more time to synchronize efforts. The meeting was considered very inspiring and a valuable step towards a better understanding of the involved disciplines and aligning the various research lines in view of the 4TU.GreenSensors project objectives.
