A National Conference on “Artificial Intelligence and IoT in Agriculture and Food Industry 4.0” was held at NIT Rourkela
New Delhi: A National Conference on “Artificial Intelligence and IoT in Agriculture and Food Industry 4.0” (AIIAF 2023) was held at NIT Rourkela during August 12-13, 2023. The Inaugural Session was held at A.N. Patel Seminar Hall, The Institution of Engineers (India) Building, NIT Campus, Rourkela. It was organized by the Institution of Engineers (India), Rourkela Local Centre in association with Dept. of Food Process Engineering and Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela.
Prof. Bibhudutta Sahoo (Head of Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, NIT Rourkela) was the Chief Guest, Prof. Parag Prakash Sutar (Head of Dept. of Food Process Engineering, NIT Rourkela) was the Guest of Honour. Er. Ajay Kumar Goswami {Chairman, the Institution of Engineers (India), Rourkela Local Centre} gave welcome address and spoke about relevance and importance of AI in Food and Agriculture industries. Introduction of the theme was presented by the Convenor of the Seminar Dr. Ramesh Kumar Mohapatra. The Convenor Dr. Madhuresh Dwivedi highlighted on segregation of Technical Sessions on various sub-themes and Keynote Speeches spread over two days. Prof. Sutar informed the audience about the stringent regulations being practiced in the food industries by USA and Japan, the two major food importers from India. The Chief Guest Prof. Bibhudutta Sahoo chronicled the technological advancements from manual to modern farming, ranging from robotics and agricultural drones to computer vision software and how they have entirely transformed modern agriculture. The Honorary Secretary of IEI, Rourkela, Dr. Rama Chandra Pradhan, gave vote of thanks. A large number of members, guests and students attended the function.
A total of 86 papers were received for presentation in the seminar out of which 29 papers were presented during the six technical sessions during these two days. The technical sessions were chaired by eminent experts in the related field. With a view to add extra significance to this technical event, leading academic personalities were invited to deliver Keynote speech on the various aspects of central theme. Few among them were Dr. Arup Nandy (Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering NIT Rourkela), Dr. S. K. Goyal (Assistant Professor, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi) who has an excellent academic and research work to his credit and Dr. Abir Chakravorty (Dept. of Agricultural and Food Engineering, IIT, Kharagpur) who is also known for outstanding record in academic and research work.
Dr. S K Goyal from BHU highlighted on the food production, harvesting, post harvest processing and handling as the most significant business among the various industries as Industry 4.0 in the entire world. He said, “With the help of AI and IoT, the future of food industries is completely based on smart farming, robotic farming, and drones.” Dr. Abir Chakravorty said, “ In combination with emerging technologies, such as smartphones, 3D printing, artificial sensing and the Internet of Things (IoT), biosensor technology has been increasingly developed. The future development of food detection of requires intelligence, portability and sensitivity. It could potentially streamline the process from taking years to taking days.”
During the presentation, participant authors presented their technical papers in their respective sub-themes viz. Data Analysis, Block Chain Technology, Drone Technology, Cyber Physical system, IoT in Smart Agriculture, AI and IoT is Farm Equipment, Spectral imaging, AI in Food supply chain, AI and Big data in nutrition and health Food quality and Food Safety Automation and Fault Detection. Their presentation was followed by a very informative interaction with the audience. Live demonstration were also presented by students pertaining to utilization of drone in Agriculture, Robotics and Automation society.
In the concluding session, many recommendations and suggestions emerged out of discussions covering various sub-themes of “Artificial Intelligence and IoT in Agriculture and Food Industry 4.0”.