Automated digital twin generator and simulator for tomato/strawberry harvesting scenarios

Supervisor: Dr. Abdurrahman Yilmaz 

What you will be doing 

The project aims to develop digital twins for tomato glasshouse and/or strawberry polytunnel scenarios. The project targets to improve the existing tomato glasshouse generator and simulator packages (https://github.com/LCAS/aoc_tomato_farm), which requires some further extensions to simulation models (see Fig. 1). In addition to that, the project aims to employ similar procedure for strawberry polytunnel use case, which includes random generation and placement of strawberry plants on polytunnel. The project provides a great opportunity to learn about the state of the art simulators (e.g. Gazebo, Unity), agricultural simulation applications in ROS2 framework, and plant architectures. 

Fig. 1: A scene from tomato glasshouse digital twin application.

What skills would be useful to have for this project 

The project requires some programming skills in Python or C++ and some CAD experience (e.g. ability to use Solidworks or similar at a basic level). The knowledge of the ROS2 framework and simulators would be helpful but it is not required. 

How to get more information and apply 

The prospective candidates can apply by sending an email to Abdurrahman (ayilmaz@lincoln.ac.uk) and providing a short background summary focusing on relevant interests and skills together with a CV. All candidates meeting the skills requirements will be accepted and in case of multiple expressions of interest, the project scope will be negotiated with individual candidates. The application deadline is 25th of June and the candidates will be informed about the selection outcome by the 28th of June with an anticipated project start on the 1st of July (this is negotiable).