Marcel Roosen of GreenTechLab on the fruitful collaboration between agrofood and mechatronics

If you can hear a frog but not see it, how can you study its population? What are ways to reduce particulate matter emissions in the poultry industry? How can we automate insect breeding smarter? And what determines the size of a bell pepper crop? These are just some of the questions that companies and institutions put to GreenTechLab, the knowledge center of Fontys Venlo. GreenTechLab investigates the issue with staff and students from various disciplines and develops techniques to find the answers.
Kiempunt Limburg talks about it with manager Marcel Roosen. About the road to success, collaboration and looking at things through different lenses.

Marcel Roosen is the embodiment of lifelong learning. "I like to keep developing. I first went through the lts, then the mts and only then the hts. And I've just finished my master's! The passion for technology has always been there. After twelve years in the business world, I was asked to come and work at GreenTechLab. What really appealed to me was the application of technology to all kinds of innovation issues in the sector. By now we have managed to define our scope more sharply, because in the beginning we received the strangest questions. We now say: whatever the issue, it must be technology-driven and it must have innovation potential. We look for an answer by focusing on mechatronics: software, electronics and mechanics or a combination of the three. We also look to see if it aligns with current and relevant trends and emerging technologies."

"The passion for engineering was always there"

Liking the most challenging issues

Partly as a result of the sharpening of the course, the initiative 'Farmer seeks engineer' arose in 2017. It is a partnership with Arvalis, supported by Keyport and Rabobank. Arvalis knows how to bring current and relevant issues to the surface and then submits them to GreenTechLab. New technologies where there is still a world to discover are preferred, such as IoT (Internet of Things), climate control in closed cultivation, robotics, AI (Artificial Intelligence) and deep learning/machine learning. Thanks to the cooperation, more and more parties know how to find the knowledge center and larger projects can be taken up. Roosen: "Sometimes you get a question that is too small, but very relevant for the company concerned, but too little for us in terms of knowledge development. Then we try to translate that into a project in which we set the bar a bit higher. For example, how can we not only build sensors and collect data, but also use it to conduct actual research that leads to new insights? It has to go beyond an interesting report for the client."

Marcel Roosen shows a sensor for measuring particulate matter, CO2 and NH3

Front of the chain

Roosen distinguishes three types of questions. "Small parties are often looking for smarter ways to organize a process. The medium-sized companies have the basics in place, but are looking for optimization and quality improvement. Here, the goal is often to save labor. The large companies really want to improve quality by applying new technologies. Think of improving the cultivation process by preventing diseases or doing research into growth factors. Small or large: there is often a latent need underneath a demand. If you want to be an early facilitator or even an initiator like us, then it is important to clarify this latent need and to ask the right questions. Then you can be involved for longer and employees and students will see more added value from their work." Roosen therefore prefers to enter into a public-private partnership of 2.5 to 3 years together with the client. "If it turns out during the course of the project that there is a lot of market potential, then we will involve strategic partners such as engineering firms and manufacturing companies in order to take it further. These partnerships are badly needed, because as a GreenTechLab we can't grow as impetuously as the business world. We have a certain capacity and it has already been expanded solidly in recent years. We think it is important to do a lot with students, but the knowledge has to stay with the staff. We have to grow steadily to ensure quality."

"We want to grow steadily to ensure quality."

A systems for frogs

Cooperation with other knowledge institutions such as HAS and CITAVERDE goes smoothly, says Roosen. For example, the new minor A-systems was developed with HAS. Students discover how biology and technology come together in innovative solutions by working on a case of a company. In multidisciplinary groups of students, the case is worked on two days a week at Fontys, two days at HAS and the students go on weekly company excursions. "For example, for the tracking and tracing of a certain type of frog we bring together all kinds of knowledge: two students from HAS, three from us. Knowledge of software and electronics, but also, for example, a student from South Africa who has a lot of knowledge of frogs and knew that there is a database of frog sounds. If you can't spot the frogs with cameras, but can recognize their unique croaks with microphones, you have a measurement mechanism in place. Then you can start looking at what equipment and software is needed for reliable measurement and reporting."

Different goggles

20 students participated in the first edition of the A-systems minor. With minimal promotion, the minor was filled in no time. "Students usually have a lot of attention for the big issues of today. Themes such as sustainability, circularity, the world food problem: they are very much alive. From the International Exchange Office of Fontys, for example, it attracts students from Mexico and South Korea. That's good news, because we want every issue to be looked at from various angles in order to arrive at the optimal solution. Diversity in discipline and in cultural background helps to be able to put on those different glasses. We at Fontys want to help international students find work here as well and thus retain their talent for the sector. That means we also encourage and support them to show themselves to the outside world and be proactive, even if that's not always in their culture."

"Let's retain talent for the industry"

Robot counts peppers

On the question of which project Roosen is most proud of, the answer is immediately: "On our AI application with which we can predict the bell pepper harvest. It is a new technique to detect deviations the crop and possible diseases. With the developed software, robots can recognize and count peppers. Growers can thus measure more precisely where the ripe peppers are hanging and how many of them there are. This makes the work easier to plan and allows entrepreneurs to better estimate how many pickers they need for this work. We are doing this project together with Kwekerij Litjens, Vieverde and Yookr. The flow of this project was perfect: the planning and timing was good, the requested level of knowledge was sufficiently ambitious and we collaborated with several universities. If the hypothesis is then implemented and it turns out to actually work, that's just really cool! It is important that we communicate with each other and that we coordinate our expectations. You must be willing to share knowledge and also accept that things sometimes take longer than you had thought beforehand. It is now clear that funding has been found for a continuation of the project at Fontys, SIA KIEM-HBO and the Centre of Expertise HTSM. It is going to help to further develop the innovation and make its added value transparent. "Often the results of our projects do not materialize until years later. A techie becomes happy when the process works and he knows how to apply the technology in practice. But ultimately the farmer is interested in the application, that's what he's looking for. How that came about doesn't matter much to him."

The demo setup of the 'bell pepper harvest predictor'

Hybrid learning environment

Now that Roosen has seen how much multidisciplinary work contributes to success, he would like to take it a step further. "I would very much like to create a large project space for a hybrid learning environment. Different knowledge institutions and the client can jointly define and implement projects in such a space. Everyone would then have ownership: there is a joint process and program and we have shared governance. Collaboration is then even more fluid and knowledge sharing occurs organically. I am convinced that it will work, the only question is when."
In addition, Roosen wants to be even more present on the Brightlands Campus Greenport Venlo. "I believe in a continuous dialogue between education and business. Are we, as education, still doing the right thing or do we need to adjust or develop? On the other hand, we still need to make GreenTechLab visible to some companies. If we are physically present on the campus, that will happen automatically. Brightlands' focus on healthy and safe food fits in nicely with our focus and that of HAS and Maastricht University. The insect breeding system is a good example of a project that we can take further together. Maastricht University can, for example, study the health effects of protein from insects, HAS can develop breeding protocols, Brightlands can take the safety assurance further and we can further develop the technology of the breeding system. In this way, the project can make a significant contribution to a new sector within agrofood that is circular, produces very efficiently and is a possible answer to the world food problem!"

"If it turns out to work, that's so cool!"

Take advantage of GreenTechLab, too

In addition to conducting research and development projects, GreenTechLab regularly organizes workshops and master classes for interested parties. There is also an IoT e-learning module that anyone can access. Want to know more or have a project you would like to do with GreenTechLab? Email info@greentechlab.nl or call +31 (0)8850 78844.