Engineering news
The first autonomous agricultural robot built for extreme environments is to begin live trials in the Peak District. Capable of identifying and precisely destroying weeds, its developers say it will save farmers fuel and manual labour costs while reducing the environmental impact of bulk herbicide spraying.
Manually destroying weeds on remote farm hillsides is often considered uneconomical or too dangerous if at-tempted with a tractor or quad bike. However, the IBEX robot can safely traverse slopes of up to 45º through mud and thick vegetation, because of its treaded tracks and onboard sensors that provide altitude information. It operates autonomously, using a combination of sensors and Bayesian machine learning software, and destroys weeds using a precision arm that is claimed to be as accurate as a human sprayer.
The cost of IBEX will be about the same as an ATV, so it is affordable to farmers, including those in developing countries, with inexpensive operation and readily available spares and consumables.
Match-funded by InnovateUK, the IBEX project is driven by a consortium of small companies including Hunshelf Hall Farm in Wortley, near Sheffield, and unmanned vehicle specialist G32 Technologies.
Dr Charles Fox, project manager of IBEX at Hunshelf Hall Farm, said: “The farmer user advice group for the IBEX project gives a current cost of spraying at £9.30/acre [£22.98/ha] to employ minimum-wage labour to manually spray the weed area – not including the chemical cost. IBEX can spray at around £6.07/acre, giving a margin of £3.23/acre. The total annual market for IBEX platforms in the UK alone is about £13.6 million a year.”
An operator set of four robots working for 100 days per year on weed-killing activities would provide an expected return of £32,000 per year against an initial outlay of £20,000 to manufacture the robots, lasting five years.
There are two further possible stages in the InnovateUK funding programme that could push the project into commercialisation over several years. However, components of the system may be released in isolation before this, said Fox – for example a manual-control version of the platform, or possibly parts of sensor network com-munications infrastructure, rather than just robots to sense and communicate data around farms.
“It can be difficult to sustain research and development work when it relies on uncertain, short-term government funding, so we may look for venture capital following the project,” he said.
User and autonomous trials of IBEX will be carried out later this year.