TY - CONF
T1 - Transfer of Manure from Livestock Farms to Crop Fields as Fertilizer using an Ant Inspired Approach
AU - Kamilaris, Andreas
AU - Engelbrecht, Andries
AU - Pitsillides, Andreas
AU - Prenafeta-Boldú, Francesc X.
N1 - Conference code: 24
PY - 2020/8/3
Y1 - 2020/8/3
N2 - Intensive livestock production might have a negative environmental impact, by producing large amounts of animal excrements, which, if not properly managed, can contaminate nearby water bodies with nutrient excess. However, if animal manure is exported to distant crop fields, to be used as organic fertilizer, pollution can be mitigated. It is a single-objective optimization problem, in regards to finding the best solution for the logistics process of satisfying nutrient crops needs by means of livestock manure. This paper proposes a dynamic approach to solve the problem, based on a decentralized nature-inspired cooperative technique, inspired by the foraging behavior of ants (AIA). Results provide important insights for policy-makers over the potential of using animalmanure as fertilizer for crop fields, while AIA solves the problem effectively, in a fair way to the farmers and well balanced in terms of average transportation distances that need to be covered by each livestock farmer. Our work constitutes the first application of a decentralized AIA to this interesting real-world problem, in a domain where swarm intelligence methods are still under-exploited.
AB - Intensive livestock production might have a negative environmental impact, by producing large amounts of animal excrements, which, if not properly managed, can contaminate nearby water bodies with nutrient excess. However, if animal manure is exported to distant crop fields, to be used as organic fertilizer, pollution can be mitigated. It is a single-objective optimization problem, in regards to finding the best solution for the logistics process of satisfying nutrient crops needs by means of livestock manure. This paper proposes a dynamic approach to solve the problem, based on a decentralized nature-inspired cooperative technique, inspired by the foraging behavior of ants (AIA). Results provide important insights for policy-makers over the potential of using animalmanure as fertilizer for crop fields, while AIA solves the problem effectively, in a fair way to the farmers and well balanced in terms of average transportation distances that need to be covered by each livestock farmer. Our work constitutes the first application of a decentralized AIA to this interesting real-world problem, in a domain where swarm intelligence methods are still under-exploited.
KW - Animal manure
KW - Ant behavior
KW - Environmental impact
KW - Livestock farming
KW - Logistic problem
KW - Nature-inspired approach
KW - Nitrogen management
KW - Optimization
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85092137595&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.5194/isprs-Annals-V-4-2020-139-2020
DO - 10.5194/isprs-Annals-V-4-2020-139-2020
M3 - Paper
SP - 139
EP - 146
T2 - XXIVth ISPRS Congress 2020
Y2 - 4 July 2020 through 10 July 2020
ER -