Association

University of Banja Luka was the host of the final VIRAL Project workshop meeting from 19-20 July 2023. Meeting agenda was split in two parts: technical and in-field.

On the first day, the project results were analyzed and there was a discussion about preparing the final narrative and financial report between partners' representatives and steering committee members. At the same time, young collaborators who are actively involved in the use of ICT in agriculture have presented their work.

The second day was dedicated to field activities where participants learned about the use of ICT in regular agricultural production in two big companies - Agro Impex and Agro Voće. Participants also had the opportunity to learn about the use of equipment acquired through the VIRAL project, as well as the activities of the Smart Water project implemented by the Faculty of Agriculture by visiting their educational mixed-varieties orchard. Gala dinner was served in newly opened restaurant in Agro Voće company.

 

MANT attended the 3rd EPS-TIG Hands-on-Science, Technology, and Interface Workshop and the 1st Montenegro Detector R&D for Future Accelerators Summer School (7-9 July), held in Petrovac, Montenegro, where it presented the VIRAL project and its work.
The event is organized under the auspices of the European Society of Physicists. It is organized by the Technological Innovation Group of the European Society of Physicists in collaboration with CERN, the National Institute for Nuclear Energy, INFN from Italy, and the European Laser Research Infrastructure ELI Beamlines, ELI ERIC from Prague.
Experiments conducted by experts in the area state-of-the-art laser technology (from ELI ERIC) were presented, and MANT has took an active part in the workshop and has presented it's own scientific research work and VIRAL project during the introductory part.

 

MANT has participated in The 42^nd RD50 Workshop on Radiation Hard Semiconductor Devices for Very High Luminosity Colliders, which took place from 20-23 June 2023 in Tivat, Montenegro.
Research projects of CERN-based RD50 Collaboration are related to innovation, development and production of state-of-the-art detectors, resistant to high-level radiation, with exceptional space-time resolution that would enable better sensitivity in detecting the existing particles, higher precision in measuring and discovery of new particles, which was not possible with the technologies used so far.
Keynote speeches, scientific presentations, panel discussions, and a dedicated project dissemination session were conducted, facilitating knowledge exchange, collaboration, and networking among stakeholders.
Montenegrin Association for New Technologies was introduced, and VIRAL project objectives, activities and outcomes were presented by MANT's representative Jovan Djurkovic.
The workshop served as an effective event for disseminating the VIRAL project.

For the second time in a row, the SmAgTech EXPO virtual fair is being organized by the VIRAL project. The fair is dedicated to the use of information and communication technologies in agriculture and will be organized on November 23-24, 2022. This year, as part of the conference, visitors will have the opportunity to attend a plenary session, a larger number of thematic sections, as well as panels dedicated to the business sector and students.

Around 21 lecturers and 13 panelists will participate in the work of the conference, while the introductory lecture will be addressed by prof. Dr. Radovan Stojanović who represents MANT – Montenegrin Association for New Technologies. More than 60 institutions, companies, and projects from the field of agriculture and information and communication technologies (Agenda) will be presented at the fair.

If you want to learn more about the state and perspectives of ICT in agriculture, digitization in animal production, remote control of production processes or the possibilities offered by new technologies in crop production, we invite you to attend the expert sections during the fair. See what part of the atmosphere that awaits us during the fair looks like in the Promo video.

All those interested can apply for participation in the fair by registering at the following address https://expo.viralerasmus.org/.

The VIRAL project has spawned another important and innovative resource - ‘’A toolkit for educators on application of the selected hardware and software in agriculture: robotics, GIS, deployment of drones, IoT, mobile apps’’, which will help our agricultural producers to master new information and communication technologies in their agricultural production. Whether you are a farmer, a fruit grower, or a livestock farmer, in this manual you will find useful instructions and guidelines on the application of selected technological solutions in your production.

The manual is also intended for educators – extension service providers and lecturers, to which it may serve as a useful resource for the preparation of lectures, trainings and mentoring activities with agricultural producers or students. If you want to learn more about the training preparation approach, we have prepared for you practical tips for designing and preparing training, which you may read at the following link: http://viralerasmus.org/download/uvodni-deo-u-tot-materijal/

Trends in the application of the Internet of Things in agriculture are presented in the second part of the toolkit, which you may find at the following link: http://viralerasmus.org/download/wp2-4-primjena-iot-sistema-u-poljoprivredi/

The importance and use of GIS in agriculture is discussed in the third part of the toolkit, which you may find on the following link: http://viralerasmus.org/download/wp2-4-primjena-gis-a-u-poljoprivredi/

Robotics plays an increasingly important role in modern agricultural production. We write about the ways of using robotics in agriculture in the fourth part of the toolkit, which you may find on the following link: http://viralerasmus.org/download/wp2-4-primjena-robotike-u-poljoprivredi/

And what we can do with a drone in agricultural production, this is discussed in the fifth part of the toolkit, which you can download at the following link: : http://viralerasmus.org/download/wp2-4-primjena-dronova-u-poljoprivredi/

Mobile apps have become an indispensable tool in agricultural production. We write about this in the sixth part of the toolkit, which you may download from the following link: http://viralerasmus.org/download/wp2-4-primjena-mobilnih-aplikacija-u-poljoprivredi/

The manual was published by the Western Balkans Institute from Belgrade (ISBN-978-86-89873-17-7)  and the Montenegrin Association for New Technologies, edited by prof. Dr. Miljan Cvetković- University of Banja Luka and prof. Dr. Radovan Stojanović- MANT.

The author team consists of prof. Dr. Zdenka Babić, MSc Vedran Jovanović, MSc Milan Šipka and prof. Mihajlo Marković, Ph.D. from the University of Banja Luka, also prof. Dr. Aljo Mujčić and Assoc. Dr. Alma Šećerbegović from the University of Tuzla. The team also consists of Jurij Rakun, Ph.D. and Erik Richter, M.Sc. from the University of Maribor, Stevan Čakić, M.Sc., Ivan Jovović, Jovana Popović and Assoc. Dr. Tomo Popović from the University of Donja Gorica and Marko Stojanović- Western Balkans Institute Belgrade.

The results of the Erasmus+ VIRAL project was presented at the traditional XII MECO 2022 Conference held from June 7-11, 2022, in Budva, Montenegro. It is an international scientific forum that aims to present and discuss leading achievements in modeling, analysis, design, validation, and application of embedded computer systems, as well as in a broader sense, complete computer systems with applications and related fields. MECO is one of the most relevant conferences in the field of embedded computing, cyber-physical systems, and Internet of Things IoT.

MECO also covers some other areas related to computer science and electrical engineering in general.

MECO is a conference of the highest scientific and professional recognition, indexed in prominent databases or digital libraries such as IEEE XPlore. SCOPUS, VoS, Microsoft Academic etc.

It was attended by over 300 scientists from more than 50 countries from 6 continents, from the field of computing and related scientific fields with a high reputation in the world, where they presented their works from a wide spectrum of fields.

The conference is traditionally chaired by prof. Dr. Radovan Stojanović from the Electrical Engineering Faculty of the University of Montenegro and prof. Dr. Lech Jozwiak from Eindhoven Technical University.

The project partners of the Montenegrin Association for New Technologies (MANT) and the University of Donja Gorica (UDG) presented the VIRAL project, its achievements and results so far, to a wide audience of international scientists, through the presentation of the project achievements as well as through the presentation of the Toolkits for educators on the application selected technological hardware and software solutions in agriculture: IoT, GIS, robotics, use of drones, mobile applications.

The present participants had the opportunity to become better acquainted with the toolkits published by the Western Balkans Institute, co-publisher of MANT, while the main editors are prof. Dr. Miljan Cvetković, (University of Banja Luka) and prof. Dr. Radovan Stojanović (MANT).

After the presentation of the work that preceded the publication of this manual by Prof. Dr. Radovan Stojanović, the same manuals were distributed to interested educators.

The VIRAL Hackathon was held in Prijedor from 12-14. May 2022 in premises of the Prijedor Economic Development Agency - PREDA.

VIRAL hackathon: MANT flag

MANT's representative was Jovan Djurkovic, who mentored the students. Six teams took part competing about innovating and making technological solutions for challenges in agriculture. All teams were rewarded, and thanks to a large number of sponsors the prize fund was about 6000 EUR. The winning team was SALLTSITY from University in Tuzla.

VIRAL hackathon: presentations

More information is available here: official hackathon report.

The "SmAgTech EXPO" conference is organized within the VIRAL project (Vitalising ICT Relevance in Agricultural Learning), which is co-financed by the Erasmus+ program of the European Union, and whose partner is MANT (Montenegro Association for New Technologies). The conference covers five thematic areas, which will be addressed by 37 lecturers.

As the conference part of the SmAgTech EXPO event, on November 17, 2021, from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., five parallel sessions will be held in the field of application of information and communication technologies in fruit growing, viticulture and winemaking, food processing, agricultural technologies, plant protection and livestock breeding.

 

This year, the VIRAL project will be presented at the MECO conference. Project partners from the company “13. Jul Plantaže”, Montenegrin Association for New Technologies (MANT), University of Donja Gorica and University of Banja Luka, present a paper entitled “A Feasible IoT-Based System for Precision Agriculture”. The paper presents the development of the application of digital technologies in the field of agriculture, with new applications and design solutions, which contributes to the application of technologies that support smart computers. The authors of the paper are Radovan Stojanović, Vesna Maraš, Sanja Radonjić, Anita Martić, Jovan Đurković, Katarina Pavićević, Vasilije Mirović and Miljan Cvetković.

X Mediterranean Conference on Embedded Computing Systems (MECO) will be held from 7-10 June 2021 in Budva. The Conference is attended by over 250 scientists and researchers from over 40 countries from 5 continents, in the field of computer and related scientific fields with high reputation in the world, where they will present current results in modelling, analysis, design, validation and application of integrated information systems. The conference is traditionally chaired by prof. dr Radovan Stojanović from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Montenegro and prof. dr Lech Jozwiak of Eindhoven Technical University. The MECO conference has a SJR impact factor since 2012 and an H index = 7 according to the American conference ranking, and papers from the MECO conference have been cited over 5,000 times in Google Scholar, while selected papers are printed in Elsevier’s journal from the SCI list “Microprocessors and Microsystems – MIPRO” . According to the accepted methodology, MECO is in 20 percent of the first conferences in the field of hardware, robotics and electronics (Hardware, Robotics & Electronics) and among the first 20 percent in the field of software engineering and programming (Software Engineering & Programming).

For more information visit the meco conference official website.

We present another domestic product by MANT and MECOnet companies, SMART-MES - a domestic telemetry station (SMART Measurement Station). It is an IoT-based telemetry station of the latest generation. Sensors collect important data such as temperature, humidity, occupancy, alarm states, etc., and send them to the transmitting unit, EPU, which consists of a nodeMCU (modern networked microprocessor), LoRaWAN communication module, and autonomous solar power supply. The EPU performs data preprocessing and sends them to the receiving unit's processor, RPU (Receiver Processor Unit), which accepts the data and forwards them to CLOUD-based IoT platforms such as ThingSpeak, IFTTT, Zapper, or customer-specific IoT platforms. As a result, the measured values can be monitored over the internet from anywhere, at any time.

SMART-MES: receiver and transmitter

The device has a combined solar and battery power supply, which, along with low energy consumption, ensures a very long period of autonomy. During the day, the solar panel provides power and charges the battery, allowing the device to continue operating in conditions of lower illumination.

Architecture of the SMART-MES system

For communication between the station and the receiver, the LoRa (Long Range) protocol is used, which is increasingly used in IoT devices due to its lower energy consumption and greater range, significantly surpassing WiFi and BTLE standards. Originally used for military and space purposes, it has recently become available for commercial use as well. This allows for a relatively long distance at which the station can be placed in the field. Using a basic antenna (20dB), experimental communication has been achieved at distances ranging from approximately 0.3-1.2 km, depending on the terrain configuration and nature of obstacles. One of the main advantages of this system is that the station can be located in areas without WiFi coverage.

Time graphs from the ThingSpeak platform

The system is highly adaptable, and its functionality can be expanded with additional sensors (such as soil moisture, wind direction and speed, etc.) as well as sending notifications or performing specific tasks.

Its main advantage is that it makes the telemetry station autonomous, suitable for precision agriculture, transportation, environmental protection, and other smart systems.

SMART-MES was developed as part of the SMART4ALL and VIRAL projects and is the result of collaboration between MANT company, MECOnet Institute and the Development Sector of Plantaže company. The designer of SMART-MES is Jovan Đurković, with mentoring from Prof. Dr. Radovan Stojanović.