Seeking technology to detect Australian winegrape vineyards

Wine Australia is seeking expressions of interest for systems, capabilities and development of image analysis technology to detect the location and other spatial characteristics of Australian winegrape vineyards.

The technology will form part of Wine Australia’s VinSites system, a consolidated national data set for the wine sector that provides critical data to track Australian wine from the vineyard through to consumption.

Wine Australia IT Program Manager Bruce Hampton said the call for expressions of interest follows a successful pilot of the technology in Western Australia and the Riverland in South Australia.

‘Through the pilot last year, we applied a technology not used before by the Australian wine sector to detect vineyards with an accuracy of more than 90 per cent’, he said.

‘We now have an exciting opportunity to build on the success of the pilot to develop a scalable and commercially viable system or a service that supports year-on-year analysis and management of data.

‘There is a growing number of groups in Australia experimenting with spatial imaging and automatic detection of crops. We hope to support the Australian community to develop a local capability to establish a sustainable long-term solution with a minimal impact on the sector.’

VinSites is designed to improve the quality, accessibility and value of the vast amounts of data that are often locked away in many disparate repositories and tools used throughout the Australian grape and wine community.

Importantly, VinSites aims to collect critical data and provide Australia’s grapegrowers and wine producers with access to accurate and timely data to support their businesses free of charge.

Formal expressions of interest submissions can be made until close of business Friday 28 April 2017. This will be followed by a period of consultation, presentations and investigation into the viability of the capabilities offered.

For a copy of the expression of interest and to discuss the project in more detail, please contact Bruce Hampton at vinsites@wineaustralia.com or 08 8228 2000.