The objective of the event is to describe the role of the Italian industry in the agricultural mechanization sector and the huge range of technologies manufactured by the Italian companies for every crop in the different world regions.

Speeches are mainly focused on technologies used in marginal areas, such as arid and desert areas, and on perspectives of development and introduction of highly-automated and robotic systems working in severe conditions.

In addition, the event is aimed to find out the possible technical and economic cooperation between Italy and Gulf countries in the agromachinery sector.

Program of the event:

Projection of the video “Productivity and Sustainability in Agriculture: the Made in Italy technologies”

“The Italian industry and the challenges of the third millennium”

by Fabio Ricci, Deputy Director General of FederUnacoma

“Cutting-edge technology for cross border agriculture”

by Lorenzo Iuliano, Technical Dept. of FederUnacoma

 

Projection of the video “Agriculture in extreme environment: the new frontiers of Research”

“University and Research: labs for agricultural robotics”

by Lorenzo Marconi, Full Professor of University of Bologna

 

Speakers:

• Fabio Ricci

Graduated in Mechanical Engineering at University “La Sapienza” in Rome in 1991. In 2011 attended a six-month training course on Management at LUISS Business School in Rome.

Since 1991 has been working at FederUnacoma for the Technical Department dealing with regulations and standardization activities at national and international level and taking on the responsibility from 2011 to early 2022. In 2008 was appointed Secretary of Comacomp (the Association within FederUnacoma representing the manufacturers of components for agricultural, garden and earthmoving machinery) and Special Project Manager of FederUnacoma dealing with Internationalisation and Foreign Markets. Since 2020 he was appointed Deputy Director General of FederUnacoma responsible for Internationalisation.

• Lorenzo Iuliano

Graduated in Civil Engineering at the University of Bologna in 2015. From 2015 to 2017 worked at the Technical Office of Ente Certificazione Macchine Srl to carry out inspection activities in companies for risk analysis and conformity checks on various types of machinery. Since 2017 has been working as Technical Officer at FederUnacoma dealing with technical legislative activity regarding type approval of agricultural and forestry vehicles both at the European and national implementation level as well as standardization activities at ISO level. In addition, he is involved in training activities on various topics related to agricultural mechanization addressed to all stakeholders and in the dissemination activities on agricultural mechanization issues via the Federation’s social channels. He is author of the FederInfo YouTube channel and FederUnacomics comic.

• Lorenzo Marconi

Graduated in 1995 in Electrical Engineering from the University of Bologna. Since 1995 he has been with the Department of Electronics, Computer Science and Systems at University of Bologna, where he obtained his Ph.D. degree in March 1998. From 1999 he has been an Assistant Professor in the same Department where is now Full Professor since January 2016.

He has held visiting positions at and collaborations with various academic/research international institutions. He is co-author of more than 300 technical publications on the subject of linear and nonlinear feedback design published on international journals, books and conference proceedings.

In 2005, he has been awarded jointly by Elsevier and the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) for the best paper published in the period 2002-2005 on “Automatica”. He is also the recipient of the 2014 IEEE Control Systems Magazine Outstanding Paper Award for the best paper published on the magazine in the period 2012-2013, He is the recipient of the 2018 O. Hugo Schuck Best Paper Award assigned by the American Automatic Control Council for the best paper presented at the 2017 American Control Conference. He was awarded with the Outstanding Service Award of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) in 2023. He is Fellow of IEEE for “contributions to feedback design of nonlinear systems and unmanned aerial vehicles”.

He chaired the IFAC Technical Committee on “Nonlinear Control Systems” from 2011 to 2017 and he is member of the IEEE Technical committee on “Nonlinear Systems”. He was the Principal Investigator of the EU projects AiRobots (2010-2013), SHERPA (2013-2017), AirBorne (2018-).

He is the co-founder of the startup Fieldrobotics spin-off of University of Bologna dealing with the development of robots for open field applications among which agriculture robots.