Agrilution
About
Max Loessl (co-founder & CEO) and Philipp Wagner (co-founder & COO) founded Agrilution in Munich in 2013. Inspired by the idea of bringing Vertical Farming to every home, they started to build the first prototype in Max’s parent’s garage. A team of scientists, engineers, and salespeople have since joined the team to develop an automatically watered, illuminated, and air-conditioned PlantCube with a connected app to grow microgreens at home. The Miele Group successfully acquired Agrilution at the end of 2019.
Agrilution asked BatchOne for help to transfer features from their current, stand-alone PlantCube to a new, modular version that allows stacking up to four units. Users can control the PlantCubes from a smartphone app, monitoring things like temperature, lighting, water, and recipes for different types of plants.
To enable real-time communication between the PlantCube modules, multi-controller electronics with a communication protocol (ABus) between the cubes, wifi module, and cloud were necessary. BatchOne assisted with the design and redesign, testing, and implementation of the communication architecture.
To make sure that the service is user-friendly and reliable, BatchOne specifically helped Agrilution with these features:
ABus (customized protocol) communication architecture
High-speed data transfer between PlantCube controllers
Setting up Wifi credentials over own HotSpot and WPS
Enabling updates via air for all modules
Receiving/sending commands data over MQTT
Sending telemetry PlantCube data over MQTT
Chunked transfers of images
High-speed data transfer to PlantCube controller
What we worked on
Product
- Revision of communication protocols
- Implementation of ABus protocol
- Implementation of WiFi connectivity
- Implementation of controller-to-controller real-time communication
- Revision and implementation of over the air (OTA) update process
- Remote communication of the device over the cloud
- Testing and debugging of new electronics
- Using finite state machine to implement the solution on the firmware
- Integration of MCUBoot Firmware OTA with rollback and verification mechanism
Who was working on the project
Hendrik
Embedded Electronics & Software Development
- About
- Skills
- Projects
With his in-depth studies of mechatronics, Hendrik first developed embedded software for medical devices. After receiving his MBA and founding his own company, he defines himself as an entrepreneurial engineer. Hendrik understands several core technologies – from sensors, over connectivity, to web-based software and apps – but also their business implications. This broad background and depth of knowledge makes it possible for Hendrik to think strategically from a number of angles.
In the recent years Hendrik has worked in the marine electronics sector, defining complex system specifications and taking a hands-on approach to product development.
Previous experience
Torqeedo | Roche | BoatOfficer, Founder
Steve
Embedded Systems & IoT Software Development
- About
- Skills
- Projects
Steve is an information and telecommunication engineer passionate and focused on developing electronics and embedded software. He worked as a software and electronic engineer in industrial IoT 4.0, medical devices, aerospace, and embedded systems.
With over six years of experience, he can design and develop real-time embedded software IoT systems with safety and performance requirements.
In addition, he applies agile and DevOps principles and practices modular programming, Clean-Code-Development (CDD), and Test-Driven Development (TDD).
Previous experience
Kumkeo | Airbus | GFT AG
Ara
Electro-Mechanical & Embedded Systems
- About
- Skills
- Projects
Aravinth is an interdisciplinary expert with 17+ years of global experience in science, engineering, arts and sustainability, with core expertise in research, development and production of electro-mechanical embedded systems and digital products.
As an engineer, he worked for two major corporates in the telecom sector and for eight tech startups in the sector of education, smart home, media, agriculture, energy, healthcare and water. He worked in Asia and Europe, where one of his hardware products was sold in 30K+ quantities and one of his software products reached 10M+ users.
As an entrepreneur, he co-founded 7 organizations across Asia & Europe in the sectors of education, sustainability, agriculture, consulting & engineering services.
Previous experience
araCreate, Founder | DreamSpace Academy, Founder | Zerosec Solutions, Founder | MotionLab Berlin | Next Big Thing | Senic | Tata Consultancy Services | Infosys
Jakob Oelkers, Head of Software“I am really happy that we had the chance to work with Ara, Hendrik, and Steve from BatchOne. We approached them to take over a project which was forfeited by another party beforehand. Taking an agile approach, we were able to structure the project and very soon had a prototype that other departments were able to work with. I would like to thank Ara, Steve and Hendrik for being so flexible and for their high availability!”
