The Grass-Twin project successfully closes its smart turf pilot: advanced monitoring for operational efficiency in sports facilities

The Grass-Twin: Smart Turf project is moving towards its conclusion with the holding of two key meetings this week: a technical pilot evaluation session, held in Terrassa, and the final coordination meeting, organized on July 3 at the headquarters of the INDESCAT cluster in Barcelona.

The technical meeting held at the Atlètic Terrassa Hockey Club was attended by representatives of Sports & Landscape, INDESCAT and the Catalan Hockey Federation, with the aim of analyzing the conditions of the test field. For its part, the final coordination meeting brought together in person the partners of Indescat, Functional Print Cluster and Rotimpres, while the rest of the entities involved participated digitally to make a joint assessment of the different phases of the project.

Grass-Twin is an industrial research project that was born with the aim of addressing a common challenge in the management of sports surfaces, whether natural, hybrid or artificial turf: the lack of advanced technological solutions for efficient and personalized maintenance.

Currently, turf maintenance systems are based on uniform schedules that do not take into account microclimatic variations or the specific needs of each area of ​​the field. This limitation causes an inefficient use of resources such as water, and can lead to problems such as the formation of fungi due to excess humidity or the deterioration of the turf due to dryness, affecting both the quality of the field and the safety of athletes.

The Grass-Twin project proposes an innovative solution based on functional printing and intelligent monitoring: a distributed system of printed sensors that act as a “digital twin” of the field, providing real-time data on key parameters such as ground moisture. This information allows irrigation and other care to be adapted in a localized manner, optimizing resources and guaranteeing optimal playing conditions.

In addition to saving water and improving environmental sustainability, this technology contributes to increasing the quality and uniformity of the lawn, minimizing the risk of injuries and raising standards in the management of sports facilities.

With the technical validation of the pilot and coordination between all partners, Grass-Twin culminates the development phase with promising results that lay the foundations for a future implementation on a real scale.

The project consortium is formed by the companies Fliwer Intelligence, Sports & Landscape, Involve Newtech and Rotimpres, together with the clusters INDESCAT and Functional Print Cluster, and has the support of the Catalan Hockey Federation and the Terrassa Hoquei Club, as collaborating entities in the validation of the pilot.