Research Group Profile: The Agrarian Mechatronics Group of the Public University of Navarre

Abstract

T he Public University of Navarre (Universidad Publica de Navarra, www.unavarra.es) is a young university founded only 26 years ago. Its main campus is located in Pamplona (Figure 1), in the north of Spain, and includes, among other faculties, the Technical School for Agricultural Engineering (Figure 2). This is a modern institute, wellequipped and with one of the best infrastructures in the field of agronomy in Spain. The school has an experimental field of 35 hectares, as well as a great number of diverse laboratories, including the Agrarian Mechatronics and the Post-harvest Agricultural Products laboratories (www.unavarra. es/dep-proyectoseingenieriarural/el-departamento/instalaciones). Since 1992, various research topics have been studied in the field of Agrarian Mechatronics, automated systems as well as applications of the physical properties of agricultural products in relation to agricultural mechanisation. This research group began its work with the development and implementation of the mechanical harvesting of tomatoes in Navarra. At the beginning, it mostly focused on the mechanical and optical properties, but it soon expanded its field of study from the visible spectrum to infrared, thanks to an encounter between Dr Carmen Jaren and Drs Ana Garrido and Veronique Bellon. Due to the huge potential of near infrared (NIR) reflectance in the field of agronomy and the food industry, coupled with the passion that Ana has always transmitted and the wide vision showed by Veronique during some courses given at The Technical University of Madrid (Universidad Politecnica de Madrid UPM), the research work of this group in the last few years has been mainly focused on this topic. Nowadays, the group consists of the following (Figure 3). ■ Two experts in NIR and agricultural mechatronic: Agricultural Engineering Professor Dr Carmen Jaren, chief research senior and Agricultural Engineering Professor Dr Silvia Arazuri, research senior. ■ A research expert in visible and NIR image processing: Agricultural Engineering Professor Dr Maria Gonzalez de Audicana, research senior. ■ A statistics expert, Dr Ignacio Garcia. ■ A postgraduate student in NIR, Master in Agricultural Engineering Ainara Lopez. ■ A technician in Agricultural Engineering, Dr Jesus Mangado. ■ An agricultural machinery expert, Master in Agricultural Engineering Pedro Arnal. This group carries out basic and applied research, both essential to developing new working lines, equipment and services potentially transferable to the private sector. With regard to applied research, we have always made a great effort in relation to technology transfer by combining both research work and services for companies. Therefore, technology companies have been created with graduates from the Agro-NIR group that have always ensured that the results from research reach their main end-users, for instance farmers and other entrepreneurs in the agricultural sector. In this way, this group has developed methods, computer applications, equipment documentation, services etc. that have been demanded by organisations and companies such as the Public Health Institute of Navarre (Instituto de Salud Laboral de Navarra), the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Ministerio de Agricultura, Pesca y Alimentacion), TRACASA, the National Geographic Institute (Instituto Geografico Nacional), INTIA, Trelleborg, Bellota Herramientas etc. Over the last 15 years, this research group has worked on the determination of qualitative and quantitative properties of food products by NIR technology, mainly focused on fruit and vegetables, and also in the analysis and development of new methods and algorithms for multi spectral image processing for crop management purposes.