Transformative Technologies

Technological advancements have the potential to bring us closer to the SDGs by providing new solutions to current problems. New developments on high-precision and/or distributed sensing, data interpretation technology and autonomous actions will allow for a more detailed view of our environment, leading to improved model building capability, which in turn leads to improved planning, control and thus increased efficiency of using resources. Given such data, novel process-based or data-driven approaches have the potential to integrate different types of information and to build models that increase our basic understanding of the phenomena in nature or society, allowing us to avoid detrimental effects before they even occur. One central aspects of this cross-cutting research area is monitoring and action execution in agricultural systems along the spatial and temporal dimension ranging from individual plants over fields to regions using ground and aerial vehicles up to remote sensing satellites. Such data also allows for automated intervention through autonomous robots reducing the amount of needed agro-chemicals and for the design of new sustainable cropping systems through new field arrangements.  This approach will lead to methods improving crop and food production, resilience with respect to diseases and climate change, biodiversity, and optimizing the resource use efficiency. Another aspect is the observation of the earth system, especially the global and regional water cycle, leading to better understanding of climate change impact.

Research for developing bio-friendly materials offers the great potential to reduce the future impact of humans onto the environment. This research area includes new techniques to develop biologically safe products, to avoid the production of waste, to increase the amount of renewable material feedstocks and energy sources in production and reduce the amount of toxic substances. New technologies also address the societal changes, risks, and resulting challenges towards long-term sustainability. This includes the automation of various tasks for humans in an aging society such as health care, personal transportation, and service robotics, but also techniques for maintaining privacy in a digital and interconnected society.