Altice Labs contributes to a scientific article in the field of IoT applied to Viniculture

Filipe Cabral Pinto, from the Technological Coordination and Innovation department, is the co-author of the article “Distributed Sensing System for an Old Vineyard in the Douro Demarcated Region – North Portugal”, where he presents a case of IoT technology applied to viniculture.

The Maria Teresa Vineyard (VMT) with more than 100 years of history is one of the oldest in Quinta do Crasto, a farm that has been in the hands of the same family for the past century. Located on the eastern slope of Quinta do Crasto, with excellent sun exposure and planted in terraces by the Douro river, at extremely low levels, the Maria Teresa Vineyard occupies an area of ​​4.7 hectares, impressing for its beauty and, above all, for its unique characteristics of an old vineyard.

In 2008, given the advanced age of VMT, the Quinta do Crasto Winemaking and Oenology teams identified the need to develop a work that would safeguard the genetic heritage of this old vineyard, and since then has promoted several initiatives since 2013 that culminated with the genetic mapping of each genotype planted there, with the purpose of replacing dead vines with genetically identical varieties, thus perpetuating the terroir and field blend of this unique vine.

The Engineering Department of ECT-UTAD joined the PatGen Vineyards project of Quinta do Crasto in 2012, in the design component of a Multisensorial Weather Station. Led by the UTAD professors Salviano Soares and António Valente, the project recently counted with the partnership of Globaltronic and Altice Labs, a consortium that aims to contribute to the identification and preservation of all the varieties that are part of the Maria Teresa Vineyard. At that time, 49 different grape varieties were identified, among them 4 white grape varieties.

The initiative will be presented on a special track, titled SENS4AGRO, integrated in the international conference ALLSENSORS 2019 that will be held in Athens-Greece from  the 24^th  to 28^th February 2019.

The article accepted for publication on ALLSENSORS 2019 is entitled: “Distributed Sensing System for an Old Vineyard in the Douro Demarcated Region – North Portugal”, and is signed by: Sérgio Silva, Salviano Soares, Filipe Cabral Pinto, Diogo Duarte, João Barroso , Justino Soares.