About AIES

At the AIES research group, our goal is to develop engineering systems that maintain sustainable agricultural operations and contribute to maintaining regenerative crop production; focusing on field application-driven research that responds to growers and processors needs.

The main objectives as an academic research group running industrial projects are to:

1. train highly-qualified personnel (HQP) in terms of; learning technical skills related to electrical and mechanical engineering, computer science, and data management; working in teams of engineers and researchers; getting involved in farm work to comprehend real world; and working problems,
2. answer research and development questions coming from the industry by providing prototypes of systems that can be demonstrated and tested not only in lab but also under field conditions,
3. contribute to the scholarly field of Agri-food and Biosystems Engineering by publishing the outcomes of our R&D activities in relevant conferences and academic journals

Our research activities are supported by McCain Foods Limited and Potatoes New Brunswick (PNB) with whom we have planned to target issues across the potato production chain including precision planting, spot spraying, autonomous scouting, post-harvest monitoring, and storage management. Currently, our research projects are also funded by NSERC through the CRD program, Mitacs through the Accelerate program, and AAFC through the Canadian Agricultural Partnership.

Ahmad Al-Mallahi

McCain Research Chair, Department of Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, Dalhousie University