Abstract: Methods, systems 1 and devices such as robots 8, 9 for farming are disclosed. An autonomous monitoring robot is configured to traverse a farm plot and generate, from a sensor set of the monitoring robot, a farm plot data set. The farm plot data set is processed to generate operating instructions for a tending robot. The tending robot is arranged to execute the operating instructions so as to traverse the farm plot and performs tending tasks on it including such as seed-planting, weeding, and applying crop treatments such as fertiliser, fungicide, herbicide or pesticide.

Abstract: A computer implemented method of optimization of a software defined network (SDN) for a network application, the SDN including an SDN controller for configuring a plurality of network components to deliver a network service for the network application, each network component having a measurable metric for each of a plurality of characteristics of the component relating to a performance of the component, the method including accessing, for each network component, a measure for each of the metrics to classify the component for a characteristic corresponding to the metric according to a fuzzy logic classification scheme; defining a plurality of configurations of network components suitable for providing the network service; and selecting a configuration of the network components to provide the network application based on an optimization function optimizing the network components in terms of classifications of each network component.