Dimitrios Loukatos

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• Doctor of Engineering
• Faculty Member (Laboratory Teaching Staff) at Agricultural University of Athens

The integration of new technologies in Industry 4.0 has modernised agriculture, fostering the concept of smart agriculture (Agriculture 4.0). Higher education institutions are incorporating digital technologies into agricultural curricula, equipping students in agriculture, agronomy, and engineering with essential skills. The implementation of targ...

In precision agriculture, farmers adopt sensors to improve decision-making, monitor the conditions of the soil, optimize fertilizer and herbicide application, and enhance overall yields from farms. Traditional sensors are based on IoT components that relay signals from soil and the farm to servers where data management operations improve decision-m...

As human labour is limited and therefore expensive, computer vision has emerged as a solution with encouraging results for monitoring and sorting tasks in the agrifood sector, where conventional methods for inspecting fruit browning that are generally subjective, time-consuming, and costly. Thus, this study investigated the application of computer...

The chapter comprises six sections. Following the introduction is the intelligent or smart sensors and IoT section, which discusses sensing components, processing methods, communication solutions, acting components, nature-inspired approaches, and energy footprint. The third section is the application of smart sensors in robotics, which discusses r...

This study sheds light on the performance of the common high-precision electromagnetic sensor TEROS 10 to estimate volumetric soil water content (θ) from dry to saturation across three different substrates, six different soil types having three different levels of electrical conductivity of soil solutions (ECw), and in liquids with increasing salin...

Efficiently reporting soil-specific information is of key importance for plant growth but can be quite demanding as well. Indeed, it may require expensive digitizers, subscriptions to services for communication links between each sensor and the cloud, and the incorporation of power-hungry elements. Added to this, soil sensors may vary drastically,...

The rapid evolution of mechatronics has revealed new paths to development automated solutions that help to enhance efficiency and sustainability in the agri-food sector. The combination of engineering, electronics and information technology allows the creation of systems that not only take over complex processes, but also to adapt to the needs of m...

This study focuses on investigating the accuracy of the empirical equations proposed by the manufacturing company for the widely used TEROS 10 and TEROS 12 sensors. Specifically, the study examines whether the raw - unprocessed - measurements provided by the two sensors lead to reliable predictions of soil moisture and electrical conductivity value...

Rapid growth of the electronics industry resulted in a plethora of innovative and cheap devices, while fluent documentation and user-friendly programming environments are available for them. Modern educational systems worldwide have exploited this situation by incorporating practices reflecting this progress, under the STEM umbrella. Remarkable pro...

Recent advances in electronics industry resulted in numerous, amazing and cheap devices, while fluent documentation and efficient, user-friendly programming environments are available for them. Modern educational systems worldwide have exploited this dynamic by including in their didactic curricula practices reflecting this progress, under the STEM...

Considering that the fusion of education and technology has delivered encouraging outcomes, things are becoming more challenging for higher education as students seek experiences that bridge the gap between theory and their future professional roles. Giving priority to the above issue, this study presents methods and results from activities assisti...

In this work, the performance of the TEROS 12 electromagnetic sensor, which measures volumetric soil water content (θ), bulk soil electrical conductivity (σb), and temperature, is examined for a number of different soils, different θ and different levels of the electrical conductivity of the soil solution (ECW) under laboratory conditions. For the...

The continuous growth of the urban electric vehicles market and the rapid progress of the electronics industry create positive prospects towards fostering the development of autonomous robotic solutions for covering critical production sectors. Agriculture can be seen as such, as its digital transformation is a promising necessity for protecting th...

Considering the degradation of water resources and the increase in human population, desalination seems to be a promising method for meeting the global water demand, from potable water to plant irrigation needs. The contribution of desalination to the agricultural sector, through the supply of water for plants or animals, is critical because this s...

Resource management in agriculture is considered a pivotal issue because greenhouse farming and agriculture-related activities generate about 10–29% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. The problem of high greenhouse gas emissions is still unresolved due to the rapid expansion of arable land to meet global food demand. The purpose of this system...

The focus of this review paper was to investigate innovations currently employed to capture and use greenhouse gases produced within livestock farms for energy production and expected future directions. The methods considered for data collection regarded a systematic review of the literature, where 50 journal articles were critically reviewed. The...

The digital transformation of agriculture is a promising necessity for tackling the increasing nutritional needs on Earth and the degradation of natural resources. Toward this direction, the availability of innovative electronic components and of the accompanying software programs can be exploited to detect malfunctions in typical agricultural equi...

The article reviewed the four major Bioinspired intelligent algorithms for agricultural applications, namely ecological, swarm-intelligence-based, ecology-based, and multi-objective algorithms. The key emphasis was placed on the variants of the swarm intelligence algorithms, namely the artificial bee colony (ABC), genetic algorithm, flower pollina...

The digital transformation of agriculture is a promising necessity for tackling the increasing nutritional needs of the population on Earth and the degradation of natural resources. Focusing on the “hot” area of natural resource preservation, the recent appearance of more efficient and cheaper microcontrollers, the advances in low-power and long-ra...

Biomimetics is the interdisciplinary cooperation of biology and technology that offers solutions to practical problems by analyzing biological systems and transferring their principles into applications. This review article focused on biomimetic innovations, including bio-inspired soft robots and swarm robots that could serve multiple functions, in...

Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) are characterized by highly dynamic phenomena and volatility. These features have a significant impact on network performance and should be present in the scenarios of experiments for the assessment of MANET-related technologies. However, the currently available experimentation approaches suffer from limitations, eit...

The rapid growth of the electronics industry resulted in numerous, amazing and cheap devices, while fluent documentation and user-friendly programming environments are available for them. Modern educational systems worldwide have exploited this dynamic by including in their didactic curricula innovative practices that are usually called STEM action...

Long Range (LoRa) systems have recently attracted significant attention within the research community as well as for commercial use due to their ability to transmit data over long distances at a relatively low energy cost. In this study, new results for the bit error rate performance of Long Range (LoRa) systems operating in the presence of Rayleig...

The role of Internet-of-Things (IoT) in precision agriculture and smart greenhouses has been reinforced by recent R&D projects, growing commercialization of IoT infrastructure, and related technologies such as satellites, artificial intellige nce, sensors, actuators, uncrewed aerial vehicles, big data analytics, intelligent machines, and radio-freq...

In pace with the fast evolving conditions in the agricultural area, this research work presents a set of easily-applicable, experimental techniques forming lightweight tools for modifying and evaluating the performance of radio modules that are based on the promising LoRa protocol, mainly in terms of radio coverage, energy consumption and packet lo...

There is a growing need for remote identification of the crop types, which is a serious issue for policy makers and statistical accountants (i.e., agricultural inspectors and government agencies), for verifying the degree of validity of the information concerning the area and the type of each crop being cultivated. In this work, remote Sentinel-2 i...

People getting involved with modern agriculture should become familiar with and able to exploit the plethora of cutting-edge technologies that have recently appeared in this area. The contribution of the educational robotics in demystifying new scientific fields for K-12 students is remarkable, but things become more challenging when trying to disc...

Inevitably, the rapid growth of the electronics industry and the wide availability of tailored programming tools and support are accelerating the digital transformation of the agricultural sector. The latter transformation seems to foster the hopes for tackling the depletion and degradation of natural resources and increasing productivity in order...

The growing demand for food supplies, caused by the global population growth, and the continuously diminishing natural resources are posing many serious challenges. Furthermore, the economic and social uncertainty and the restrictions incurred by the recent COVID-19 pandemic are favouring the research for further fruit harvesting alternatives. The...

The examination of recent developments and future perspectives on smart and solar greenhouse covers is significant for commercial agriculture given that traditional greenhouse relied on external energy sources and fossil fuels to facilitate lighting, heating and forced cooling. The aim of this review article was to examine smart and solar materials...

The recent developments in electronics have made available a variety of systems at very appealing quality, cost and size levels. These conditions are not left unexploited by modern agriculture that seeks to tackle the increased global food demand and the degradation of available resources. Indeed, the precision agriculture sector is flourishing ass...

Artificial intelligence applications in fire safety of agricultural structures have practical economic and technological benefits on commercial agriculture. The FAO estimates that wildfires result in at least USD 1 billion in agriculture-related losses due to the destruction of livestock pasture, destruction of agricultural buildings, premature dea...

Since the very early beginning of the mankind history, any great difficulty, like wars or diseases, had to be a challenge for progress and innovation, otherwise the game was lost. In this regard, the recent COVID-19 pandemic provides to the learners' and teachers' community a great opportunity to better adapt and enrich their educational practices....

During the last years, a wide variety of credit card-sized computer systems have appeared, systems characterized by continuously diminishing cost and size and plenty of features. The boost in the electronics industry had also a strong impact on the accompanying sensing, acting and transmitting modules. On the other hand, the efficient monitoring an...

As part of the latterly introduced approach of Agriculture 4.0, practices involving ubiquitous computing advancements and conceptual innovations of “smart” agricultural production tend to be adopted. This fact is considered to be critical in addressing the challenge of securing adequate food supplies for the constantly increasing world population,...

The boom in the electronics industry has made a variety of credit card-sized computer systems and plenty of accompanying sensing and acting elements widely available, at continuously diminishing cost and size levels. The benefits of this situation for agriculture are not left unexploited and thus, more accurate, efficient and environmentally-friend...

Due to the dynamic nature of the agricultural industry, educators and their institutions face difficult challenges as they try to keep pace with future demands for knowledge and skilled workers. On the other hand, computational thinking (CT) has drawn increasing attention in the field of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educ...

During the last years, a plethora of technological advances have appeared, with a strong impact on people’s lives and works. In response to this dynamic, people getting involved with agricultural practices, like scientists, students and farmers, should become familiar with and able to exploit systems of cutting-edge characteristics. In this regard,...

Agriculture is a very demanding sector, in terms of physical condition, and not all people are able to tackle it, in a satisfactory way. The problems become more apparent in case of elder people or people with disabilities. The recent technological advances and the cost reduction in the smart phone industry products and the derived systems can make...

The purpose of the present work is to investigate and evaluate the performance of the LoRa communication protocol when applied to wireless network intercom in standard Precision Agricultural applications. This is a very promising communication protocol as it solves the problem that arises when we force wireless networks to consume large amounts of...

For elderly or people with special needs, caring plants is a good practice to reinforce an optimistic aspect of view. Unfortunately, similar tasks often require physical strength and senses to work fine. This paper reports exactly on the effort of students of Agricultural Engineering to bridge this gap, through the exploitation of innovative hardwa...

This paper argues that the role of education is important for the social uptake of robotics in human life. This role is exemplified through an exemplary project activated in educational robotics. Lessons learnt from the eCraft2Learn project are presented to highlight the role of robotics education for familiarising young generations with robotics f...

During the last years we are witnessing a very successful osmosis between innovative and cost-effective credit card - sized computers and education. These computers, equipped with low cost sensors or actuators, can be the “heart” of various DIY robotic artefacts. This environment allows for a mixture of thinking and making activities that can be ve...

This paper presents the capacity building workshops for teachers that took place in the maker space established in Athens in the frame of the eCraft2Learn project. The aim of the workshops was to familiarise the teachers with the eCraft2Learn ecosystem that provides tools from robotics, DIY electronics, visual programming, 3D modelling and 3D print...

Inspired by the mobile phone market boost, several low cost credit card-sized computers have made the scene, able to support educational applications with artificial intelligence features, intended for students of various levels. This paper describes the learning experience and highlights the technologies used to improve the function of DIY robots....

Nowadays, several studies assure that digital fabrication and making technologies, if coupled with proper learning methodologies such as constructivism and constructionism, can provide learning experiences that promote young people’s creativity, critical thinking, teamwork and problem-solving skills – the essential skills necessary in the workplace...

In pace with the fast evolving conditions in the agricultural era, t techniques to exploit modern low cost innovative systems performance of the very promising consumption and packet losses. components and conventional smart phone devices The behavior of the radio of interest is ideal for educational purposes or presenting characteristic performanc...

This paper focuses on the small-scale pilots with learners that were carried out in Greece in the frame of the eCraft2Learn project including activities that aim at reinforcing learning by making in STEAM education. In the context of the pilots, 13-17 years-old students worked with digital fabrication and making technologies for creating robotic ar...

Agriculture is a very demanding sector, in terms of physical condition, and not all people are able to tackle with it, in a satisfactory way. The problem becomes more apparent in case of elder people or people with disabilities. Recent technological advances and cost reduction in smart phone industry and derived systems can be used to make this pro...

For elderly or people with special needs, caring plants is a good practice to reinforce an optimistic aspect of view. Unfortunately, similar tasks often require physical strength and senses to work fine. This paper reports exactly on the effort of students of Agricultural Engineering to bridge this gap, through the exploitation of innovative hardwa...

Agriculture is a sector that is rapidly changing due to the technological advances of our era, but is not always easy for the students to catch up with this fast evolving process. A good way to tackle with it is to let them experiment trying to develop innovative robotic vehicles for agricultural purposes. This paper describes exactly the trials be...

This paper presents a simple and flexible testbed for measuring and/or modifying the behaviour of sensor nodes equipped with radio interfaces of interest, like the LoRa ones. The proposed experimental testbed is using a module that measures the overall power consumption of the raspberry pi based sensor nodes hosting the radio modules like the LoRa...

The eCraft2Learn research project aims to introduce digital fabrication and maker movement in formal and informal education settings. In the context of the eCraft2Learn pilots we organised during the academic year 2017-18 two experimental sessions of six hours each in the eCraft2Learn lab for student-teachers who attend the post-graduate course STE...

This paper presents a simple and flexible testbed for measuring and/or modifying the behaviour of sensor nodes equipped with radio interfaces of interest, like the LoRa ones. The proposed experimental testbed is using a module that measures the overall power consumption of the raspberry pi based sensor nodes hosting the radio modules like the LoRa...

Οι γενικές εφαρμογές Physical Computing, αλλά και οι πιο εξειδικευμένες της Εκπαιδευτικής Ρομποτικής, έχουν ενταχθεί τόσο στη Δευτεροβάθμια όσο και στην Πρωτοβάθμια Εκπαίδευση, παρουσιάζοντας μια σημαντική, πολύχρονη και αξιόλογη πορεία υποστήριξης και της διδασκαλίας. Οι προτάσεις είναι πολλές και σχετίζονται με όλους τους χώρους, όπως είναι τα συ...

Περίληψη: Τα τελευταία χρόνια, υπάρχουν συνεχείς ενδείξεις ότι διαδεδομένες μικρές υπολογιστικές πλατφόρμες, όπως ο Arduino Uno, μπορούν, με ιδιαίτερα χαμηλό κόστος, να συνδράμουν καθοριστικά στην υλοποίηση καινοτόμων έργων από τους μαθητές, με πολλαπλά παιδαγωγικά οφέλη. Αν και το εμφανέστερο πεδίο αξιοποίησης τέτοιων συστημάτων είναι η ρομποτική,...

Physical Computing, αποτελεί έναν χώρο με μεγάλη συμβολή στην εκπαίδευση επιτυγχάνοντας υψηλό βαθμό μάθησης. Έτσι, έχει αναπτυχθεί μια πληθώρα εφαρμογών και προτάσεων ένταξης ανάλογων συστημάτων στη διδακτική διαδικασία, τόσο για την αύξηση του βαθμού της Υπολογιστικής Σκέψης του μαθητή, όσο για την ανάπτυξη δεξιοτήτων και ικανοτήτων επιτυχούς αντι...

Τα τελευταία χρόνια γίνεται όλο και περισσότερο εμφανής η αξία της χρήσης πρωτότυπων απλών υπολογιστικών συστημάτων χαμηλού κόστους στην εκπαιδευτική διαδικασία. Χαρακτηριστικό παράδειγμα αποτελεί η ηλεκτρονική πλατφόρμα Arduino Uno, καθώς και η πιο πρόσφατη και πολλά υποσχόμενη υπολογιστική πλατφόρμα Raspberry Pi. Η τελευταία, διαθέτοντας διαφορετ...

The availability of multiple collocated wireless networks and the multi-radio capabilities of contemporary wireless terminals open the potential for optimized wireless connectivity over the heterogeneous wireless environment. Vertical Handover (VHO) operations play a central role in such a setting, enabling the dynamic association of wireless users...

The paper focuses on the concept of the vertical handover (VHO) among collaborative wireless networks, which is the necessary driver for seamless mobility and thus for the ability of the user to be always best connected. The paper discusses the required enabling architecture for distributed VHO decision making that is based on the principles of the...

In general, instrumental seismic monitoring of an important site is one of the most significant steps within the conservation of cultural heritage, since it is connected with recognition of probable, potential hazards and thus it is important for determining measures of protection. In this context, an accelerographic array has been deployed on the...

The convergence of heterogeneous wireless networks, such as cellular mobile systems, wireless local area networks and other wireless broadband systems, leading to the so-called beyond 3G networks, introduces an increasingly strong trend, to margin monolithic approaches in favour of more flexible network architectures. Due to the diverse capabilitie...

Timing has a key role in several traffic control functions encountered in modern packet-switched networks. In order to be effective, a timing unit must provide fine resolution, be simple to implement and scale well with the number of controlled traffic streams. This paper addresses the design, implementation and evaluation of a timing unit that can...

In this paper a network-based, open loop mechanism for the multicast delivery of layered video streams is specified and experimentally evaluated for a DiffServ environment. Network oriented mechanisms for delivering layered multicast video offer simplicity and efficiency. Before the emergence of the Differentiated Services (DiffServ) framework a so...

As networks and applications running on them become more complex, there is a need for an efficient framework supporting experimental performance evaluation based on real measurements. Towards this end, this paper presents: a) an advanced architecture for a traffic generation tool capable of producing complex traffic profiles, b) the architecture of...

The paper discusses the constituent software modules of a Virtual Distributed Testbed (VDT) which enables cross-system operation and interworking among clusters simulating different Radio Access Technologies (RATs). The heart module of VDT is the Central Controller whose role is to manage and control the individual simulation clusters. The communic...

Heterogeneous radio networks employ multiple different wireless access technologies, which act jointly towards providing enhanced network access and service provision, as well as exhibiting an increased potential in terms of: network coverage/availability, QoS guarantees, delivery cost and compliance with users’ requirements. Such an environment ca...

This paper presents an advanced architecture for a traffic generator capable of producing ATM traffic streams according to fully general semi-Markovian stochastic models. The architecture employs a basic traffic generator platform and enhances it by adding facilities for “driving” the cell generation process through high-level specifications. Sever...

In this paper, architectural extensions for enhancing an open media-streaming platform with differentiated services mechanisms are studied, implemented, and experimentally evaluated. Towards this end, an appropriate layering is adopted in order to enable definition of Quality of Service (QoS) specifications and their mapping to network parameters d...

This paper describes extensions implemented on the MPEG4IP streaming platform, to exploit Differentiated Services. These extensions are based on concepts of proposed QoS frameworks and are implemented by exploiting platform communication capabilities. Within this context, a Packet-marking layer component is introduced performing packet Type of Serv...

In this paper, an open framework for implementing Quality of Service (QoS) mechanisms for qualitative guarantees, based on the semantics of MPEG-4 video streams, is introduced. The core of this framework is the open-source platform MPEG4IP, developed by Cisco, for streaming MPEG-4 audio/video streams over IP networks. This platform does not include...

The aim of the paper is to propose an approach to studying delay variation effects on live voice streams and mapping them to quantifiable parameters. A suitable performance evaluation framework is defined within which an appropriate metric, based on the (m,k) firm guarantee criterion, is studied and tailored to interactive voice streams. This metri...

This paper presents an end-to-end application and network framework for delivering multimedia services over QoS aware IP networks as this is implemented within the IST OPENISE project. Several interactive MPEG-4 applications addressing the fields of tele-learning, conferencing and interactive TV have been classified according to their content and Q...

Multicast multimedia distribution, despite the benefits it offers, features a number of unresolved issues, such as network and users heterogeneity. Layered stream organization has been considered as suitable to cope with these issues. In this paper we, initially, study proposed mechanisms for the multicast delivery of layered video streams, highlig...

This paper presents an advanced architecture for a traffic generator capable of producing ATM traffic streams according to fully general semi-Markovian stochastic models. The architecture employs a basic traffic generator platform and enhances it by adding facilities for "driving" the cell generation process through high-level specifications. Sever...

In this paper the design and the implementation of an ATM traffic generator system is presented. The basic principles of this document follow the architecture presented in Hontas et al. (1997). It is a PC-based system with a careful allocation of functions between hardware and software, in a way that it can work on-line at full-speed (155.52 Mbps)...

The convergence of heterogeneous wireless networks, such as cellular mobile systems, wireless local area networks and other wireless broadband systems, leading to the so-called beyond 3G networks, introduces an increasingly strong trend, to margin monolithic approaches in favour of more flexible network architectures. Due to the diverse capabilitie...