SPADE Open Call 2
Innovative solutions to enhance the capabilities of agricultural drone technology through addressing specific challenges in open-field, forestry, and livestock case studies.
Τhe strategic objective of SPADE is to develop an Intelligent Ecosystem to address the multiple purposes concept in the light of deploying UAVs to promote sustainable digital services for the benefit of a large scope of various end users in the sectors of agriculture, forestry, and livestock. SPADE Open Call 2 is a funding opportunity aimed at fostering innovation in agricultural drone technology. This call seeks proposals that address specific challenges within the agriculture sector, leveraging drone technology to enhance efficiency and sustainability. Open Call#2 seeks 9 talented innovators (for 9 challenges) to advance research in agriculture, livestock, and forestry applications, with a total budget of €525,000, funding 8 projects at €60,000 each and 1 project at €45,000, for a duration of six months
Type of projects to be funded: Projects should focus on developing solutions for agricultural drone technology, addressing specific case study challenges such as disease detection, data collection, and livestock management.
Sectors / domain: The call targets the agriculture sector, specifically focusing on open-field agriculture, forestry, and livestock management. Applicants must align their solutions with one of the challenges outlined within the three distinct SPADE Case Study groups:
1.- Open-Field Case Study Integration (Spain): the open-field case study in Spain primarily focuses on distinct use cases in Mediterranean crops.
2. Forestry Case Study integration (Norway): in Southern Norway SPADE will implement three forestrybased use cases: (1) a drone swarm for forest inventory, (2) collaborative case for forest inventory and planting activities, and (3) a heavy-lift drone for implementing forest operations.
3. Live-stock Case Study integration (Greece): the primary objective is to enhance and promote sheep breeding through grazing and health monitoring
in the Greek island of Lesvos. It will utilize multi-purpose UAVs in various configurations, synchronized with SPADE platform digital twin services.
Individual or consortium: the proposal has been submitted only by one partner (no consortium allowed).
Specific eligibility requirements:
- Eligible applicants include entities from EU member states and associated countries.
- Eligible organisations: (1) Universities and research centres; (2) NGOs and foundation; (3) SMEs and startups.
- There are specific open-source requirements and publication practices that must be adhered to.
Specific topics or challenges: SPADE seeks to select and finance one project for each challenge.
UCU-CH1: Swarm Communication and Navigation.
UCU-CH2: Open Source Tilted Rotor Drone System.
UCU-CH3: Aerial image processing service.
CStudy1-CH1: ML-based disease detection in Mediterranean crops.
CStudy1-CH2: Open Field Data Collection and Annotation.
CStudy2-CH1: Below-Canopy Forest Data Collection and Annotation.
CStudy2-CH2: Ultralight Self-Levelling Landing Gear for Quadrotor Drones.
CStudy3-CH1: Virtual Fencing Application for Livestock Grazing Management.
CStudy3-CH2: Acquiring and structuring livestock open field animal wellbeing/healthcare datasets for training ML models.
Projects duration: 6 months.
Budget, funding rates and payment conditions:
Funding rate: Not specified explicitly in the guidelines.
Budget conditions / limitations: : 8 projects can receive a maximum budget of 60,000 EUR each, while one project (challenge CS1-CH2) can receive a maximum budget of 45,000 EUR.
Payments: payment schedules are subject to specific milestones, with and interim and final report: 50% payment at interim report approval (month 4), 50% payment at the approval of the final report (month 7).
Key dates:
- Opening date: 24 March 2025.
- Info Day 1: 26th March 2025 at 10:00
- Info Day 2: 2nd April 2025 at 10:00
- Info Day 3: 4th April 2025 at 10:00
- Info Day 4: 9th April 2025 at 11:00
- Closing date: 26 May 2025 at 17:00 CET.
- Evaluation period: 5 weeks after the closing date (4th July 2025).
- Publication of results: +3 weeks (25 July 2025).
- Sub-grant agreement preparation: +2 weeks (8th August 2025).
Links
Closes
26/05/2025
Max funding per project
60.000€