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Monitoring the conditions of a crop

At an early stage of the SOM project, Olle Hydbom at AutoideXpert, together with LTH and colleagues at SLU in Alnarp, tested a system for monitoring the viticulture at Kornheddinge mill with sensors.

The LoRa network was newly started and it turned out that the network not only covered the city of Lund but also reached Kornheddinge just over a mile southeast of Lund. The idea was to, with the help of technology, enable fruit, berry and wine growers to improve their crops. In this way, farmers would be able to obtain better products with reduced environmental impact. The technology was developed so that it would work not only in a vineyard, but also for, for example, berry and fruit orchards. In viticulture, moisture and temperature were measured at the vine plants. Other important values to collect could concern insolation, dew point (the temperature at which dew falls out), wind speed and the activity of microorganisms in the soil all of which can affect crop results. A continuation of the project was then thought to be to build analysis programs suitable for different crops.

What happened next?

Olle Hydbom's company was among the first actors in the SOM project to test LoRa. It proved to be extremely valuable to access the digital network via SOM and to have the opportunity to test and learn more about both possibilities and limitations. Early on, problems related to uneven data transmission due to distance to the base station were encountered. Within the SOM project, it was then possible to test other solutions such as Sigfox, which, among other things, meant that the company did not have to build its own infrastructure. However, this was not the optimal solution. Through the SOM project, the company was given additional opportunities to test more technology solutions in order to seamlessly handle the large amounts of data generated from the sensors. The optimal solution finally proved to be 5G NarrowBroadband IOT. The development is now running at full speed and the company is involved in development projects together with the Swedish Board of Agriculture and the Swedish Agency for Growth, where the focus is on supporting digitalisation in industrial fruit and berry growing.

Sensors show free parking spaces

Within the SOM project, there have been several projects involving parking lots in different ways, but it started with Sasa Farkas at ApparkingSpot who tested sensors in car parks together with Lund's Municipal Parking Company (LKP). The collaboration was initiated through Future by Lund's network. The first attempts were made in and behind the Arena Park parking house next to Stadsparken in Lund. The aim was to measure the number of cars driving in and out of the car parks using sensors and then have the ability to show available parking spaces to customers. The data is sent via the open LoRa network. Reducing search traffic would result in less carbon emissions and save time for those who are going to park. The parking spaces could also be made better use of. One hope was also to be able to rent out private parking spaces. ApparkingSpot has also participated in several of the other sub-projects related to parking.

What happened next?

The availability of the open LoRa network offered through the SOM project was a very important starting point for Apparkingspot. This meant that the company was able to quickly enter and test its product solution in a sharp environment. Another extremely important component was the ability to test with relavant partners from future customer segments and to iterate new product solutions together with them. An example of this is the work with LKP, Lund's municipal parking company, in which, among other things, the occupancy rate of parking garages was investigated using sensors. Experiences from the process allowed the company to act agility and change its product portfolio from containing both hardware and software to containing only software, which freed up resources and accelerated the development of the software. The availability of sharp expertise in business development and the direct link to smaller test verification money was extremely important at this early stage. At the beginning of 2021, Apparkingspot has started a collaboration with a large international parking company, looking at future parking solutions together.

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AR technology helps emergency services practice

Daniel Kindstrand and the team behind HeroSight had developed AR (Augmented Reality) glasses software to allow emergency responders to practice how to act when they arrive at a location with many injuries. It is important to quickly create a picture of the injuries of the persons so that it is the right person who gets to go in the first ambulance. The team behind the product had already tested with the City of London Police and through Lasse Mattiasson in the SOM project, a contact was given to Smart Villages in Veberöd who connected the rescue corps in the village and let them test the new technology.

What happened next?

The opportunity to test together with the rescue corps in Veberöd played a major role in the further development of the Hero-Sight product. By quickly presenting their product solution to the intended target group, they also received immediate feedback, which made it easier to work further with the product development. Another important detail according to the company was that the SOM project succeeded in building a partner network consisting of curious, future-oriented and innovative people and organizations. Being met with curiosity and a genuine desire to learn new things from a test group is extremely important for a newly formed company and creates a solid foundation for constructive feedback. The tests in Veberöd then led to a new round of tests with the Emergency Services in Hultsfred. Valuable lessons learned from these tests have been incorporated into the continued development of Hero-Sight's decision training program.

Sub-project managers for the SME track have been Lars Mattiasson and Ola Andersson at Ideon Innovation. Both have a rich network of contacts that has been of great benefit to the project.

“This shows that the more proactive we are and the more we meet entrepreneurs and small business owners, the more we can create connections that become test surfaces or business for new products and services,” said Lars Mattiasson. That is why it is so important for us in the SOM project and in Future by Lund to move outside and listen.

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Facts sub-projects Support for SMEs

The project is a sub-project of the SOM project is part of the Strategic Innovation Programme for the Internet of Things, IoT Sweden, which is funded by Vinnova. Anders Trana at Future by Lund was the project manager for the entire project. The project started on 1 September 2017 and ran until December 2020.

‍Project Time: 2017-09-01 - 2020-12-18

Project Manager: Lars Matiasson, Future by Lund, Ola Andersson, Ideon Innovation

Partnerschappen: Ideon Innovation, KamEN, Lund Municipality