LATERAL.systems: Edge Based Indoor Farm Monitoring Platform

LATERAL.systems: Edge Based Indoor Farming Monitoring PlatformUSDA NIFA Phase II Proposal Project SummaryFood and the future of food production needs help. The mission of LATERAL.systems LLC(LATERAL) is to enable next generation farming by accelerating the intersection of promisingmodern technologies to advance sustainable and ethical production of food. A promisinginnovation for meeting increasing challenges to reliable sustainable food production are NovelIndoor Farming Systems. However indoor growing requires delicate balance. High labor costsassociated with manually monitoring and responding to complex data signals cut into profitmargins however failing to detect and respond to problems in a timely manner can be even morecostly. A fully integrated modular approach for monitoring water quality and air conditions inindoor growing environments does not yet exist; currently indoor AgTech solutions do notprovide an open platform approach to address handling open data due to proprietary applicationinterfaces and closed data schemas to fuse disparate dataset sources.LATERAL is developing an interoperable hardware and software solution that synthesizes andinterprets sensor readings to make data readily useful and secure. As timestamped readingscaptured at routine intervals from multiple sensors are fused local system analytics involvingmachine learning will monitor relationships to provide automated monitoring alerts and alarmsand message notifications with mediation options to enable users to anticipate and avertsignificant abiotic and biotic stresses. Importantly our innovation is edge based; farmers will notneed reliable high speed internet data services to access on-premise round-the-clock monitoring.In Phase I we successfully validated an open-source framework to build our services onprototyped sensor arrays and data visualization features and enabled preliminary trends analysis.The Phase II research effort is focused on solidifying the architecture of our indoor farmmonitoring solution advancing development of our edge platform to pilot stage forcommercialization and conducting a technical field test program to advance critical enablingfeatures of a conceptual platform for commercialization. Anticipated results are to enableinteroperability of more sensor devices to reduce dependencies that create supply chainvulnerabilities advance our LATERAL Edge platform provisioning enable security measuresadvanced AI capabilities and user interface to pilot ready stage. Throughout field testing wewill improve on message notification services and data visualization features working directlywith farm stakeholders to ensure useability and correct interpretation of actionable data insights.The total available market is the $172 billion global indoor farming market; our serviceableaddressable market is the indoor specialty crop market valued at USD $4.16 billion in 2022(Zion 2022). The $34 million aquaponics market is expected to grow to $65 million by 2028 andthe hydroponics market worth $10.2 billion is forecasted to grow to $19.5 billion by 2026 (KDMarket Insights 2022). Thus LATERAL is moving into a large rapidly expanding markethungry for data insights to increase success. We plan to democratize access to AgTech Edgesolution for the over 2.02 million farms in the U.S. (USDA 2021) that lack internet access on thefarm starting with regions experiencing prolonged drought where producers are working toaugment food production using indoor strategies that require as little as 5% of the water it takesto grow the same plants outdoors. Together we'll maximize farmers' success in growing morefood with fewer resources and increase the competitiveness of American food producers.