• MORERA, which has just closed its latest milestone in 2024, has developed a personalized irrigation recommendation system for each plot based on satellite imagery and Artificial Intelligence, as well as a new generation of miniaturized and compact remote sensing instruments to respond with agility to users' needs.
• Its objective has been and is to boost the Spanish agricultural industry, the most important in the country with 11% of GDP, by providing personalized information to farmers, allowing them to apply precision agriculture at a low cost.
• The initiative has involved all actors in the value chain and responds to the sector's needs in terms of resource management in the context of climate change.

Madrid, October 2024 - The Board of Directors of CDTI (Centro de Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial), within the framework of the MISSIONS program, decided in 2020 the Center's participation in the project called "MORERA", by awarding financial support in the form of a grant of 3.83 million euros, out of the total 5.33 million euros of project budget.

The final results have been presented to end users and the general public at a workshop scheduled for mid-October 2024.

Thales Alenia Space in Spain has led the consortium of an innovative project to boost the Spanish agricultural industry, MORERA (Monitoring System for Efficient Irrigation and Agricultural Performance). A pioneering initiative in the sector that will allow the elaboration of personalized irrigation recommendations for each plot, allowing a reduction of up to 25% in crop water thanks to Artificial Intelligence and satellite imagery, integrating data from dedicated instruments and multiple sources (Copernicus, AEMET, etc.) and developing a new generation of miniaturized and compact space instruments for remote sensing.

For this purpose, a modular system has been proposed that integrates deficit irrigation recommendations and efficiency prediction to optimize productivity. MORERA responds to one of the challenges of the "Science and Innovation Missions" call, in which the Center for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI) sought solutions to problems with a high impact on society through innovative technologies.

The main purpose of the call was to contribute to the development of five missions, identified for their great relevance to Spain's future challenges and in line with some of the Sustainable Development Goals set out by the United Nations in the 2030 Agenda. With 11% of GDP, agriculture is the first national industry and the call identified the development of a more sustainable and healthy agri-food sector and, in particular, the reduction of the use of water, nutrients and phytosanitary products as one of the priority missions.

Pioneer project in irrigation and agricultural efficiency monitoring, with new space-based sensors

MORERA's end-to-end system ensures that data delivers value to the end user, covering from sensor to crop thanks to new Artificial Intelligence techniques applied to remote sensing and other data sources and proposes a new generation of miniaturized instruments for remote sensing in all bands, starting with thermal infrared. Full deployment of these solutions will demonstrate the potential of the technology to reduce water use in annual and perennial crops and the ability to make more accurate crop predictions throughout the crop cycle.

MORERA is the first project for a plot recommendation system (not only maps) based on new remote sensing tools and data from the Copernicus program satellites processed by Artificial Intelligence algorithms. It is also a pioneer project in Europe in using thermal infrared to calculate evapotranspiration and water stress, which will allow deficient irrigation management.

Thanks to MORERA, farmers will be able to apply precision agriculture at low cost with a system that will provide them with a periodic measurement of crop condition and give them personalized fertigation recommendations, as well as efficiency forecasts based on Artificial Intelligence and Big Data algorithms. This integrated concept is an advance over the options currently available on the market, which responds to the needs of the sector in terms of resource management in the context of climate change.

In this line MORERA has investigated a series of new algorithms for processing remote sensing images with machine learning to optimize farmers' decisions: recommendations in deficient irrigation scenarios and crop efficiency prediction.

New generation of miniaturized instruments for remote sensing

Since this system will require optimized data for agricultural use and short updating times, MORERA has also gone further in the field of remote sensing, to generate miniaturized and compact optical instruments with a combined size and resolution ratio not yet existing. This  has been achieved through the application of freeform geometries in optical systems for  space, which has reduced the size and cost of the system. These combined elements, not present in any of the instruments currently in service, must be compatible with small satellites and cubesat constellations so that development time and costs can be minimized as well as increasing the versatility of the system (constellations that increase revisit and/or coverage, extrapolation to other applications or inclusion of new detection bands, etc.).

The MORERA consortium covers the entire value chain, with technology partners such as LIDAX and ASEOPTICS, spatial system experts such as Thales Alenia Space in Spain, and agricultural end-users with companies such as TEPRO. Each industrial partner is accompanied by a top national and European Public Research Organization (OPI) such as the National Institute for Aerospace Technology (INTA), the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture (IAS-CSIC) and the University of Valencia (UV), led in this project by José Antonio Sobrino, Main Investigator of the project and winner of the Jaume I award for his use of remote sensing for environmental protection.

Thales Alenia Space in Spain has led together with TEPRO, as well as with the support of IAS and the University of Valencia, the definition of the whole system, identifying the needs and shortcomings of the sector to define both the system requirements and the possible new services to be offered with MORERA. In addition, TEPRO has acted as end user, participating together with Thales Alenia Space in Spain, IAS, UV and INTA in the validation of the Artificial Intelligence algorithm for deficit irrigation optimization and predictive products for fertigation and efficiency optimization, being a key element in the final testing of the overall system prototype.

Within the scope of the MORERA project, a novel high-resolution compact thermal sensor (TIR) optimized for obtaining agricultural indices has been developed: ASEOPTICS has contributed with the development and manufacture of the lenses, LIDAX has been in charge of the design and manufacturing of all the appropriate mechanics for the LIDAX lenses, and Thales Alenia Space in Spain has completed the development by performing the systems engineering, as well as the design and manufacturing of all the video electronics of the instrument and its associated mechanics. Thales Alenia Space has also developed in-flight processing algorithms for secondary missions such as automatic fire detection.

The MORERA project began in December 2020, and has lasted more than three and a half years, until June 2024. It has been developed jointly in Madrid, Seville and Barcelona, where the project partners are based, as well as in Valencia and Cordoba, where the OPIs that have collaborated in the project are located.

The project has received 3.83 million euros in joint co-financing from CDTI and the ERDF Development Funds, under the CDTI file number MIG-20201026.