Rouages: “In terms of training and dialogue, Mobilab is a wonderful tool”
Basile Ploteau is a research engineer at the UMR Itap, Technologies and Methods for Tomorrow’s Agriculture, and an AgroTIC instructor at the Institut Agro Montpellier. At the wheel of the Mobilab, he sets out to meet with farmers to raise their awareness of new technologies and convey their needs to future engineers and companies developing digital tools. He tells us about this mission in *Rouages*, the video series produced by the University of Montpellier. Action!
He’s waiting for us in the shade of the trees that cool the Gaillarde campus. From a distance, with its open side panel, you’d almost mistake it for a food truck. Inside, however, there’s no pizza oven or refrigerator—just a 3D printer, screens, and drawers overflowing with various materials:“antenna cables, prototyping wires, screws, and Colson clamps that let you attach sensors to a tank, a tractor, or a pole,” lists Basile Ploteau, the driver and master of this unusual work tool: the Mobilab.
A traveling "fab lab"
“Mobilab is the response to an observation made by my team long before I arrived,” explains the engineer, who joined the AgroTIC team at UMR Itap five years ago . “The observation was that the agricultural sector is actually quite eager for digital solutions. But these two worlds—agriculture and digital technology—don’t intersect. ” A lack of training in agricultural high schools, the perceived cost of digital technology on the agricultural side, and a lack of understanding of the agricultural sector on the part of software developers, among other factors. There is no shortage of obstacles to this convergence, which is why we came up with the idea of developing an educational tool to provide a common vocabulary for these two worlds.
A tool that would serve a dual purpose for the Institut Agro Montpellier: to convey farmers’ needs to the school’s students and thereby have them work on concrete issues that reflect real-world conditions.“The idea behind the Mobilab is to keep the wheels turning by training farmers on digital topics and gathering their needs. It should also allow us to connect with companies that have ideas for developing sensors, thereby keeping our curriculum up to date. It’s truly a tool that brings the program to life. ” And that’s how the idea was born to design a sort of “mobile fab lab,” which was officially launched in 2023 (Innovation is fostered with Mobilab).
Bringing Digital Technology and Agriculture Together
This dual focus on raising awareness and providing training shapes the activities of someone who describes himself as a“Swiss Army knife”—I have many very different roles, but my primary one with Mobilab is facilitating workshops and making complex topics accessible to the agricultural sector regarding the use of new technologies and connected sensors. ” Behind the wheel of his truck, he takes advantage of agricultural events organized by chambers of agriculture, cooperative wineries, Cumas (agricultural equipment sharing cooperatives), and others to meet his audience, demonstrate sensors, and offer hands-on workshops to introduce them to metrology, communication networks, data visualization, and more.
“The goal is to spark their enthusiasm and help them understand that this is accessible and that we can train them and help them develop digital skills to support them with issues such as water management, fertilizers, and pesticides,” explains Basile Ploteau. “Today, there are simple and accessible technologies—what we call ‘low-tech digital’—that can make their work easier.”
Prototyping and Operations Research
And to meet demand as closely as possible, Basile Ploteau “tinkers” with his own sensors.“That’s my second task: prototyping and designing tutorials. I don’t manufacture sensors myself; I take commercially available ones and adapt them for agricultural use with a bit of programming and electronics. ” He then shares this work in the form of tutorials to enable farmers to use these low-cost sensors in their daily work by configuring them to meet their specific needs. These new digital skills also allow them to explore new applications by assembling or even designing their own network of connected sensors. “It’s not just about commercial solutions with subscriptions; they can also tinker and make do with their own resources, which fits well with the agricultural culture.”
It’s a mission he gladly shares with the students, who are thus presented with concrete examples:“They’re given a set of specifications and a time limit to design a solution and explain to us what technical challenges they’ve overcome and how their solution could potentially be commercialized.” ” Prototyping is often funded by research projects in which the engineer plays a central role. “The operational aspect is important in these projects. We don’t just measure biodiversity; we seek to develop tools so that farmers can, in a practical way, integrate it into agronomic decision-making at their own scale.”
Training the Engineers of Tomorrow
Third and final—but certainly not least—Basile Ploteau devotes a large part of his time to training. This includes training professionals, farmers, and advisors. By 2025, across all events, the Mobilab will have raised awareness among more than 250 people and trained about 50 of them. But above all, the Institut Agro Montpellier trains the agricultural engineers of tomorrow.“I teach them myself during their final year of the engineering program, at the master’s level, ” explains the instructor, himself a former student of the Institute.
And here again, Mobilab proves to be a valuable promotional tool for raising awareness of this specialization.“If we were to take stock of Mobilab today, its impact on the agricultural sector would, of course, still be modest. We’re not revolutionizing the system. But in terms of training and dialogue with the professional community, it’s a tremendous tool that’s gradually helping to train local representatives who, in turn, can raise awareness and train others, ” concludes the engineer.