A new research initiative at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln is turning precision farming techniques into predictive farming techniques.
With support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Qiang Liu, assistant professor in the School of Computing, will collaborate on an interdisciplinary project with Hongzhi Guo, assistant professor in computing; Yufeng Ge, professor in biological systems engineering; and Saleh Taghvaeian, associate professor in biological systems engineering. Together, the team will design, develop and deploy “CropTwin,” a new digital twin system that will accurately model crop growth to enable smart irrigation management techniques.
“Nebraska can be very dry, and being an agricultural state, water and water management are very important here,” Liu said. “We’re developing these digital twin systems as more cost-effective and efficient solutions, and we’re trying to make them more ubiquitous, so that in the next few years, farmers can actually use them to save water.”
For his part in the project, principal investigator Liu will develop a digital twin, or a dynamic virtual replica of a real-world counterpart that can be used for experimental testing through simulations. Liu has previously developed digital twins for research related to autonomous vehicles and wireless networks, but for this initiative, he’ll create digital twin of a Nebraska farm to simulate crop growth under various irrigation methods and climate scenarios.
