Robotics

Agricultural robotics is a field that is becoming more and more mature, with new solutions constantly reaching the market. This area has seen a significant growth due to the shortage in workforce, high costs of labour and tediousness and repetitiveness of the tasks. BioSense uses robots as moving platforms for gathering the data about the crop production. These platforms are equipped with both commercially available sensors and sensors developed by the Group for Sensor Design.

The latest project we have been working on is concerned with soil in-field analysis. The proposed system moves through the field and perform soil sampling and soil parameters analysis (macronutrients, micronutrients, pH, EC) as well as georeferencing of the results of the analysis. The complete process is autonomous since it is possible to predefine the route of robotic platform on the plot using GPS coordinates and a 3D Real-Time-LIDAR system for reconstructing the surrounding area and avoiding any possible obstacles. As a result of the analysis, multilayer maps are generated where each layer represents one of the parameters obtained by the proposed system. Based on these maps, the farmer will be able to make the right decisions, optimize the production and make full use of the precision agriculture in terms of efficiency, yield increase and sustainability of agricultural production.