Aachen, Germany
March 7, 2016

Global plant phenotyping specialist LemnaTec teamed up with the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center last week in Washington, DC, to present the Field Scanalyzer to stakeholders from across the energy and technology sectors including U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, President of the World Bank Jim Yong Kim and Al Gore.
 
The Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) hosted its annual Energy Innovation Summit just months after the historic United Nations climate negotiations in Paris where countries around the world committed to combating climate change. To implement these ambitious targets, the United States looks to ARPA-E’s portfolio of innovative energy technologies to provide options for a low-carbon economy.
 
“The ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit represents our commitment to advancing breakthrough technologies that are critical for America’s energy future,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz.
 
Now in its sixth year, the Summit draws more than 2,000 participants from all over the world to discuss cutting-edge energy issues and cultivate relationships with thought leaders from business, government and academia. The Technology Showcase – a key attraction at the Summit – provides a first-hand look at the latest energy innovations and includes displays from more than 240 ARPA-E-funded technologies, many appearing in public for the first time.
 
The Field Scanalyzer is a fully automated system designed to capture deep phenotyping data from crops and other plants growing in a real field environment. A huge motorised gantry, which can be positioned to an accuracy of within a few millimetres, travels down the field recording detailed information about each plant. The data is then uploaded to a central database for further data processing and analysis. Pioneered in the UK at the Rothamsted Research Centre, this revolutionary machine enables scientists to monitor crops in a real field environment 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
 
The work being carried out by the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, together with LemnaTec, Clemson University, the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute and Near Earth Autonomy, was highlighted as one of the “4 Insanely Cool Technologies” at the 2016 ARPA-E Summit.

Website: http://www.lemnatec.de

Published: March 7, 2016