SoilRob Showcases digi.farming.lab at the Federal Government Open Day

On 21st June, the SoilRob research group had the exciting opportunity to present our interactive serious gaming environment, digi.farming.lab, to the public at the Open Day of the Federal Government.

Our team guided visitors through the newly updated simulation, which bridges the gap between complex agricultural research and hands-on, simulation-based learning. Operating as a virtual demonstrator and digital twin of the patchCROP experiment, the platform allows users to safely explore the impacts of climate change and new farming technologies.

The version showcased at the Open Day features a massive engine migration to achieve compatibility with Farming Simulator 25. Key highlights of the upgraded environment include:

• Autonomous Robot Integration: Users can now deploy digital twins of field robots, including the Naio Oz, Feldschwarm, and the solar-powered FarmDroid FD20, to visualize GPS-guided navigation and mechanical weeding tasks.
• Interactive Topic Islands: We have built dedicated virtual spaces to educate users on crucial agroecological themes, including soil biodiversity, pesticide reduction, and climate resilience.
• patchCROP Landscape: The heterogeneous landscape of the patchCROP multi-crop experiment is fully modeled, incorporating real field boundaries, soil textures, elevations, and crop dynamics.
• LfL Future Crop Farming (FCF) Strip-Cropping Landscape: Developed in collaboration with the Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture (LfL), the FCF landscape is now embedded into the virtual world. This includes strip rotations, terrain and slope variations, beetle banks, and biodiversity zones.

The digi.farming.lab platform continues to evolve as a virtual sandbox for researchers, practitioners, students, and the public to explore sustainable, robot-assisted agriculture.