Delta Collaborates with National Ilan University to Launch the First Smart Agriculture Interdisciplinary Labs in Eastern Taiwan

Delta cares about nurturing young talent and puts much effort into industry-academy cooperation programs that facilitate university students smooth and seamless entry into industry. Delta has gradually joined forces with multiple universities and just last month announced some exciting news. On 31 October, Delta began a new collaboration with National Ilan University (NIU) to launch the first Smart Agriculture Laboratory and Smart Agriculture Monitoring and Control Center in eastern Taiwan, and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for future in-depth cooperation. Integrating Delta Industrial Automation (IA) products of control, motion, and drive in an IIoT environment, NIU and the students will focus on mechanical and electrical engineering and biological applications with a focus on smart agriculture. With on campus sensor implementation connected to the DIAView SCADA system, it builds a learning environment combining theory and practice so that students can carry out remote monitoring, control, data collection, and analytics.

Andy Liu, general manager of Delta’s IA Business Group, pointed out that smart transformation is an industrial trend affecting future competitiveness. Delta has been dedicated to IA development as it makes continuous progress and summarizes its experience. Delta not only helps customers from different fields grow and strengthen, but it also participates in industry-academy cooperation to nurture new-generation talents. Delta also organizes the Delta Cup and other automation design events to narrow the gap between academic and industrial practices. Based on its talent development philosophy, Delta has combined forces with NIU and established the smart agriculture interdisciplinary labs. Leveraging Delta’s smart IA solutions and NIU’s solid agriculture and forestry capabilities, Delta and NIU look forward to providing a robust smart agriculture development platform for the students.

As an important facility for the College of Bioresources to execute foundation education, research, and practices, the NIU-Delta smart agriculture interdisciplinary labs cost nearly NTD 2.5 million with a million-level IA device and software donation from Delta. The Smart Agriculture Laboratory integrates Delta’s IA products to create teaching aides for controllers, motors, IIoT, mechatronics, and plant factory introduction courses. Meanwhile, the Smart Agriculture Monitoring and Control Center adopts the SCADA system to keep tabs on the status of the plant factory and other fields, and collects data to optimize farming results. With this collaboration, Delta will bring its industrial experience in smart agriculture to the campus and help students enhance their interdisciplinary and innovation capabilities.