October 2020 Issue: CropHopper robot takes novel approach to field monitoring

We hope you find the latest edition of The Robot Report informative. This month’s issue is devoted to robots in agriculture.

The insert appeared in the October 2020 print issue of Design World, sibling publication to The Robot Report, Collaborative Robotics Trends, and Robotics Business Review. The October 2020 issue includes the following articles:

How PyTorch enables Blue River’s robots

Farmers today face a huge challenge — feeding a growing global population with less available land. The world’s population is expected to grow to nearly 10 billion by 2050, increasing the global food demand by 50%. As this demand for food grows, land, water, and other resources will come under even more pressure.

CropHopper robot takes novel approach to field monitoring

Robots can perform many functions in agriculture, from monitoring crops and livestock, to applying fertilizer and pesticide, to harvesting fruits and vegetables. While most farm automation involves wheeled robots or aerial drones, HayBeeSee has taken a different approach with its CropHopper robot.

Augean Robotics mechanizes food production, from farm to table

I hosted Charles Andersen, CEO of Augean Robotics, at RobotLab to dig into the agritech market. He grew up with the industry in a family with generations of farmers. After business school, Andersen worked at John Deere’s largest competitor, Case New Holland (CHN). After analyzing Blue River and the wider unmanned marketplace for CHN, Andersen concluded that “autonomy is a force for new market disruption within agriculture, meaning that it is a force best commercialized by startups, so I decided to start a robotics company focused on agriculture.”

Building service network for 10,000 autonomous combines

For agricultural robotics to be more widely adopted, farmers will need services to help maintain and repair intelligent systems. EkoNiva Holding Co. and Cognitive Pilot have signed a three-year agreement to outfi t farm machinery with the C-Pilot autonomous driving system and create a service network across Russia.