On 1 October 2026, the SQAT project (Soil Quality Analysis Tool) presented its latest developments in smart solutions for high-resolution soil mapping at the Field Lab for Digital Agriculture of the Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy (ATB) in Potsdam. The event focused on combining satellite data, in-situ soil sensing and robotics to provide farmers with timely and cost-effective data and information for site-specific soil management.

Around 50 participants from research and practical farming gained insights into automated soil sampling, sensor-based soil mapping and laboratory analysis directly at the edge of the field. Through presentations and live demonstrations, the different technologies were introduced and the complete workflow was demonstrated, ranging from assessing soil variability and planning sampling campaigns using satellite data, to autonomous soil mapping with near-infrared spectroscopy, robotic soil sampling and on-site analysis of soil samples.

Following this first presentation to an invited expert audience, we will continue to optimise our systems over the coming weeks for applications in precision agriculture and more efficient soil mapping.

We would like to thank all participants for the inspiring discussions and valuable feedback.

In addition, the HASHTAG project was presented, which aims to establish trustworthy, accurate, and traceable workflows for digital data in agriculture.

You can find more information about the SQAT and HASHTAG projects at https://sqat.farm/ and https://hashtag-project.eu/.

Contact

Dr. rer. nat. Sebastian Vogel
Group leader "Proximal Soil Sensing"
Telephon: +49 331 5699-426
Email: SVogel@atb-potsdam.de