THE NEWEST wine buff on the street could be an eye in the sky with artificial intelligence.
Using advanced machine learning and high-resolution satellite imagery, the GAIA (Geospatial Artificial Intelligence for Agriculture) software will be capable of gathering information from vineyards in real-time.
Viticulture’s Research and Development Corporation, Wine Australia, have partnered with DigitalGlobe and Consilium Technology to develop the software, which may be capable of assessing the health and yield of vineyards across Australia.
Wine Australia’s announcement said the partnership’s initial investment will see GAIA deployed in Australia’s wine regions as a proof of concept.
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“To prove that the technology can deliver accurate, timely and cost-effective information about Australia’s wine-grape vineyards,” it said.
Wine Australia chief executive officer, Andreas Clark, said the expertise Consilium Technology and DigitalGlobe brought to the project was very exciting.
“Moving to a technology-based solution improves accuracy and timeliness and removes a reporting burden from our grape-growers,” he said.
“GAIA’s machine learning algorithms will continually analyse new satellite imagery to improve its capabilities.
“Over time, GAIA’s algorithms will be able to quickly and easily provide new insights and opportunities, such as discovering the impact of weather-related damage on vineyards.”
Software company, Consilium, chief executive officer, Seth Thuraisingham said rising global demand for food put pressure on agricultural industries to lift productivity.
‘The global demand for food continues to rise, putting huge pressure on the agriculture industry,” he said.
“The next step to increasing output is through Agricultural Intelligence.
“GAIA provides ubiquitous geospatial insight to every grower in every season in Australia and eventually around the globe. At Consilium, we aim to empower the agriculture industry to embrace machine intelligence.”
GAIA’s first test will be to accurately map and identify vineyards in Australian wine regions.