METHOD AND DEVICE FOR MEASURING WATER PRESENT IN VEGETATION

WaterPercept is a new technology for measuring, in real time, the amount of water in vegetation, with great interest in Agri-Food Industry. Since it uses microwaves for the measurements, WaterPercept is capable of measuring the amount of water in deeper plant layers and is immune to interferences caused by lighting changes or dry elements, opposed to the optical-based methods. In addition, the flexibility on antenna and receptor numbers that can be used allows to adapt WaterPercept technology to measure water amount leave-by-leave in different conditions of terrain and environment. This technology can also be used to assess water present in plants in nature to prevent fires and optimize water usage, of great interest in Forest, Environmental and Raw Materials Industries. Therefore, this technology has 3 main application industries aligned with 3 priority themes and respective topics of the National Strategy for Intelligent Specialization (ENEI), as well as with 3 priority areas and respective topic of the North Region Intelligent Specialization Strategy (RIS3). The innovative features of WaterPercept technology will allow to increase the efficiency of water usage in crop?s irrigation, to asses water status in plants in real time and to control and optimize other devices and systems, like spraying systems, automatically adjusting the amount of liquid to be sprayed. Nowadays, 70% of water consumption worldwide is used only for agriculture with an expectation to increase due to the growing population (higher food demand), which can negatively impair its use on other industrial activities and, mainly, in drinking water consumption. The aim of this project is to support an international patent application (PCT) and its respective national validations in the World's largest markets in order to leverage the economic and societal impact of WaterPercept