Anticipating changes in agriculture and new technologies
The Agricultural machinery and new technologies chair — backed by UniLaSalle and its partners AGCO-Massey Ferguson, the Michelin Corporate Foundation and the Regional Council of Picardy — addresses a need among manufacturers to anticipate changes in agriculture and new technologies to design agricultural equipment that meets farmers’ requirements as closely as possible.
Until now led by mechanics experts, the agricultural machinery sector would like to position itself at the forefront of innovation by drawing on the potential of new technologies to contribute to more sustainable agriculture.
The Agricultural machinery and new technologies chair will bring together the academic knowledge of the various regional institutions (UniLaSalle, University of Technology of Compiègne, University of Picardie Jules Verne) and the requirements and knowledge of industrial partners in the agricultural field.
Along with the chair holder, a scientific committee will set out the research program.
The research fields are as follows:
- Development of practices/Innovations in agricultural machinery: cost and usages,
- Precision farming (plants, livestock): tilling, treating, fertilizing, irrigating (decision-making tools, field/man/machine interface, etc.),
- Digital farming: big data, relevance of data flows, etc.
Since September 2016, a two-year Agricultural machinery specialization program has been offered to students entering their fourth year at UniLaSalle (internal recruitment and parallel intakes).
Based on scientific knowledge of agronomy and without ever losing sight of the end users (i.e. farmers), this program provides engineering students with expertise in mechanical and data processing issues. There is also a focus on product marketing.