Applications of extended reality (XR) in agriculture, livestock farming, and aquaculture: A review

Abstract

The primary sector is facing a series of challenges such as climate change, overpopulation, freshwater scarcity, energy poverty, urbanization and an ageing population. On top of that, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the sector even more. Extended Reality (XR) is a promising technology that can enable the solving of the aforementioned challenges. The main aim of this study was to analyze the use of XR in agriculture, livestock farming, and aquaculture, as well as to identify trends and gaps in its use. Therefore, a literature review was conducted to classify relevant research studies according to XR use in terms of focus area and application type, and human – machine interaction in relation to XR type, XR viewer device, and XR controller type. The results indicated that there is huge potential from the application of XR in the primary sector, even if this field of studies is at a premature level. Moreover, there are many ways and devices that allow human-machine interaction in XR environments for agriculture, livestock farming, and aquaculture. Further research is needed to solve health and privacy and security issues and achieve seamless and more immersive interaction in XR environments, thereby enabling users to take full benefit of XR technology in the primary sector.

Keywords

• Extended reality
• Augmented reality
• Mixed reality
• Virtual reality
• Agriculture
• Livestock farming