Small Robot Company has won a prestigious Horizontal Innovation™ Award from the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and the High Value Manufacturing Catapult (HVMC).
The Company harnesses the power and precision of robots and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve the way that food is produced. The £50,000 funded research award will look to develop ‘Harry’. It is precision drilling and planting robot.
The company aims to make farms more profitable, and increase yield and efficiency, through using small robots instead of tractors.
The technology is built on 15 years of robotics research by Professor Simon Blackmore, the world’s leading expert on precision farming at Harper Adams University. Harry has the potential to help farms to increase yields and profits whilst substantially reducing the use of chemicals.
Its arable farming robots Tom, Dick and Harry enable farmers to be kinder to soil, kinder to the environment, more efficient, more precise and more productive. It will also reduce chemical usage and cultivation energy in arable farming by up to 95%.
Harry will accurately place seed individually in the ground at a uniform depth to within 2cm accuracy, creating a plant level map showing the location of each seed. Harry will also radically reduce soil run off and associated water pollution.
References:
https://www.theiet.org/policy/media/press-releases/Horizontal_innovation_award2018.cfm
https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/small-robot-company-raises-50k-2018-07/