The Internet of Things (IoT) provides a vision of a world in which the Internet extends into the real world embracing everyday objects. The interaction between real/physical and digital/virtual objects is an essential concept behind this vision. In the IoT, physical objects are accompanied by rich, globally accessible digital counterparts, which contain both current, historical and future information on that object’s physical properties, origin, ownership, and sensory context. Such digital twins enable things to become context aware and to sense, communicate, act, interact, exchange data, information and knowledge. The introduction of digital twins as central means for the farm management has the potential to revolutionize agriculture. It removes fundamental constraints concerning place, time, and human observation. As a consequence, farming operations would no longer require physical proximity, which allows for remote monitoring, control and coordination of farm operations. Moreover, digital twins can be enriched with information that cannot be observed (or not accurately) by the human senses, e.g. sensor and satellite data. A final interesting angle is that digital twins do not only represent actual states, but can also reproduce historical states and simulate future states. This presentation will introduce the concept of digital twins and illustrate its application in agriculture by some cases of the Smart Agri-Food and Fractals projects (2014-2016). As part of the FIWARE Accelerator Programme, these projects have promoted the uptake of Future Internet technologies in the European farming industry with a special focus on SMEs and start-ups. They provided direct funding, mentoring, coaching, technical support and networking. Smart Agri-Food has started with the 50 most promising companies and selected 17 SMEs to proceed in phase 2. Fractals supported 44 SMEs especially in areas which are considered as "white spots" (Balkans, South East Europe).

1. Digital Twins in Farm Management
With illustrations from FIWARE Accelerators SmartAgriFood and Fractals
Cor Verdouw, Jan Willem Kruize, Sjaak Wolfert, Grigoris Chatzikostas
11th International European Forum (Igls-Forum) (161st EAAE Seminar) on System
Dynamics and Innovation in Food Networks, February 13-17, 2017, Innsbruck-Igls, Austria

2. Internet of Things in Farm Management
2
Internet of Things

3. Digital Twins:
• virtual, digital equivalents to physical objects
• real-time and remotely connected
• rich representations of the objects and its context
Digital Twins in the Internet of Things
3
Physical
Object
Digital
Twin
ERP
Systems
Intelligence
Services
Mash-up
Apps
Graphical/
Geo Services
Supply Chain
Systems
Ambient
Sensors
Mobile
devices
INTERNET

4. Remote Control of Farm Operations
 Digital Twins remove fundamental
constraints concerning:
● PLACE
● TIME
● HUMAN OBSERVATION
 Decoupling physical and
information flows of operations
 Better sensing and monitoring of
production
 Better understanding of specific
farming conditions
4
C
U
S
T
O
M
E
R
SFarm
Processes
Control
S
U
P
P
L
I
E
R
S
Virtualized Farm Management
Digital Twins
Physical
Objects
 More sophisticated and remote control of farm operations

5. Control systems based on Digital Twins
5
Digital Twins
Physical Objects
Dis-
criminator
Decision-
maker
Measure-
ments
Departures
NormsControl Model
SensorEffector
Inter-
ventions
Virtual
Views
Virtual
Interventions
Added
richness
Data
Acquisition
Business Processes
External
Data
Source: Verdouw, C.N., Beulens, A.J.M., Reijers, H.A., Vorst, J.G.A.J.v.d., 2015. A Control Model
for Object Virtualization in Supply Chain Management. Computers in Industry 68, 116–131.

6. High-level information architecture
6
Data Platform
Digital Twins
device layer
virtualization
layer
application
layer
Source Produce Deliver
Farm
Inputs
Farm
Resources
Farm
Outputs
Information
Handling
Problem
Notification
Decision
Making
network layer

7. Smart Agri-Food & Fractals
 FIWARE: set of public and royalty-free technology
components that ease the development of Smart Applications
in multiple sectors (Generic Enablers)
 FIWARE Accelerator Programme: aims at promoting the
take-up of FIWARE technologies
● 80M€ to support SMEs and entrepreneurs who will develop
innovative applications based on FIWARE
● 19 Accelerator Projects, 2014-2016
 Smart Agri-Food: supported 50 companies in phase 1 and
selected 17 in phase 2
 Fractals: 44 apps (focus Balkans, South East Europe)
7

8. Agriculture number 1
in the FIWARE Accelerator programme!
8Source: FI-Impact, 2015
D2.3 Ex Ante Impact
Assessment and Forecast

9. Illustrative cases Smart Agri-Food & Fractals
9
Case Accelerator Topic Objects
Dairy Monitor
(Connecterra, NL)
Smart AgriFood Heat detection, health analysis and
location services
Dairy cattle
Open PD (Espiral
Pixel, PT)
Smart AgriFood Identification of plant pests and
diseases
Crops
INSYLO (Ubikwa
Systems, SP)
Smart AgriFood Stock monitoring of feed silos of
livestock farms and optimization of
the replenishment
Feed Silos
FarmTelemetry
(Lesprojekt, CZ)
Fractals Fleet management, tracking
machinery and energy monitoring
Farm equipment
OLIFLY
(HarphaSea, SI)
Fractals Monitoring of olive fly occurrence
and expanding
Olive trees
BeeZon (GR) Fractals Apiary monitoring to identify
diseases, pest infection, pesticide
exposure and toxicity
Bee colonies

10. Dairy Monitor (Connecterra, NL)
10

11. Open PD (Espiral Pixel, Portugal)
11

12. INSYLO (Ubikwa Systems, Spain)
12

13. FarmTelemetry (Lesprojekt, CZ)
13

14. OLIFLY (HarphaSea, Slovenia)
14

15. BeeZon (Greece)
15

16. Conclusions
 Digital Twins enable farmers and other stakeholders to
act immediately in case of (expected) deviations
 Digital Twins are already used in innovative internet-
based applications
 Challenges ahead include:
● Digital twins of lower granularity levels
● Timely and reliable synchronisation with real objects
● Integration and interoperability
● Affordable solutions, especially for SMEs
● (Near) real-time optimization, simulation and decision support
based on Digital Twins
● Autonomous, self-adaptive Digital Twins
16

17. Many thanks for
your attention!
Recommended reading:
• Sundmaeker, H., Verdouw, C., SjaakWolfert, Freire, L.P., 2016. Internet of Food and Farm 2020, In:
Vermesan, O., Friess, Peter (Ed.), Digitising the Industry River Publishers, pp. 129-150.
• Verdouw, C., Wolfert, S., Tekinerdogan, B., 2016. Internet of Things in agriculture. CAB Reviews 11,
35, 1-11.
• Verdouw, C.N., Beulens, A.J.M., Reijers, H.A., Vorst, J.G.A.J.v.d., 2015. A Control Model for Object
Virtualization in Supply Chain Management. Computers in Industry 68, 116–131.
• Verdouw, C.N., Wolfert, J., Beulens, A.J.M., Rialland, A., 2016. Virtualization of food supply chains with
the Internet of Things. Journal of Food Engineering in press.
17
Cor.Verdouw@wur.nl