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PROJECT

projet

Smart Aquaponics is an Interreg France-Wallonia-Vlaanderen cross-border cooperation project whose objective is to  develop intelligent management tools for aquaponics systems dedicated to professionals, urban communities and training. 

General objective

Promote the development of a professional sector for aquaponics within the cross-border area 

Target group

Communities, professionals and training institutions (secondary, higher and university)

Project duration

The project extends over

four and a half years:

from January 1, 2018

to June 30, 2022

Total budget

The total budget is

€ 1,946,520.89

(including € 973,260.42 financed

by the ERDF)

Specific objectives

A serious game accessible from your smartphone and a textbook

Smart Aquaponics offers online training in the form of a serious game.  The game enable the user to manipulate virtual aquaponics systems and to experiment with a wide range of situations. The game integrates both the practical aspects and the theoretical notions necessary to design and manage an aquaponic system. The theoretical file allows you to learn aquaponics. It contains technical and scientific elements to understand, design and manage an aquaponic system.

An informatic model to design and simulate virtual aquaponic systems

The aquaponics simulator allows the user to compose virtual aquaponics systems, test crop plan, different management strategies and perform simulations. The simulations estimate the productivity, as well as the chemical and energy components of the system. The simulator can therefore be used as a tool to assist in the design of aquaponic systems, but also to test different management scenarios for the system. This tool is designed in order to be able to design a very large range of aquaponic systems.

Connected sensors to monitor system in real time

The monitoring tool has two aspects. Firstly, Smart Aquaponics offers a cellphone interface that allows remote monitoring of the aquaponics system, generates alerts, access old data and performing simulations to anticipate the evolution of the system. Secondly, this monitoring is based on connected sensors (pH, EC, T°, levels, water flows, ...).  The application can be connected to different types of sensors, either sensors present on the market or a more low-cost monitoring system developed by the Howest partner.

MISSIONS AND VALUES

Missions et valeurs

Context

The France-Wallonia-Flanders cross-border region

Due to its very high urbanization rate, up to 93%, the France-Wallonia-Flanders cross-border region is subject to massive daily flows of agricultural products, water and energy from conventional agricultural production systems. These systems generate large amounts of CO2,  wastewater and other wastes.

Sectors

The green sector

The agricultural sector

R&D networks

To answer these problems, the strategy is to increase the transfer and dissemination of good practices in the green sector in general, and more specifically in the agricultural field. For this, it is necessary to structure cross-border Research & Innovation networks.

Missions

Work for food security and the environment

The main missions of the project are:

  • improve food security;

  • provide environmental, economic and social benefits;

  • adress water management issues.

Values

Collaboration, innovation and competitiveness

The project is based on the values of intersectoral collaboration in order to stimulate innovation and competitiveness of cross-border companies which are partner operators of the project, and more generally to support and energize actors in the field of professional and urban agriculture.

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