Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 2

Tactica Communications Inc., located in Winnipeg Manitoba, is an entrepreneurially driven digital technology company that has innovated its service offering and developed new products by successfully building, iterating, and improving an adaptable and extensible technology base. Tactica is developing a set of technologies that will provide algorithmic image processing in agricultural applications as a service from a cloud-based environment for use within both web and mobile application contexts. As a first practical application, the company is working on accurate determination of the quality of hemp and flax bast fibres, destined as a feedstock for the production of renewable chemicals and fibres, through the use of image processing algorithms. Tactica has successfully developed algorithms for quality assessment measurements for bast fibre and has integrated these into application contexts for field use. The task now is to optimize Tactica's algorithm for biomass fibre cleanliness, as cleanliness is an important aspect of overall fibre quality. To determine the accuracy of the technology implementation, a trusted benchmark needs to be established to validate algorithmically derived results against. This will be accomplished by using chemical and biological analytical methods to quantify the composition and contaminants of biomass fibres and correlate this data to the visual appearance of the fibres. The lack of precision inputs is an opportunity within the broader trend to digitize the agricultural value chain. Currently, primitive organoleptic assessments are common as accurate analog assessments require tedious, time-consuming processes. This results in both producers and processors missing mechanisms to assess the quality and therefore inform market value and higher margin opportunities, including the use of high-quality fibre in higher profit use cases. Tactica plans to further explore commercialization paths where an increase in quality information results in higher profitability for producers and processors through increased negotiating power or identification of quality thresholds for specific use cases. Therefore, the proposed research activities support Tactica as well as other bioeconomy private sector participants.