Fields and Technologies

agROBOfood members, from DIHs to SMEs, are active in developing agri-robot technologies and products. But which are their main areas of focus?

Arable Crops, Horticultural Crops & Pastureland farming: Arable crop production refers to the systematic use of land to commercially grown plant crops. Arable crops refer explicitly to the production of cereals, oil crops, pulses, and root crops like potatoes and sugar beet. Horticultural Crops refers to the outdoor production of fruit, vegetables, grapes, olives and ornamentals. Pasturelands refer to the activities to manage land suitable for grazing by livestock. All these crops also come back in the concept of precision agriculture.

Greenhouse Crops: Greenhouse crops refer to the farming systems that make use of greenhouses to get more control of production circumstances. Crops include fruit, vegetables and ornamentals. The crops can be grown in the ground or above ground on growing benches in a sheltered construction that provides warmth andprotection.

Livestock & Aquaculture: Livestock farming is the commercial farming activity where production animals, such as cows, pigs, sheep, or chickens are raised and kept in an agricultural setting to produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. Aquaculture refers to the controlled farming systems where fish are raised and kept, and to the ocean environment to produce and harvest fish, seaweed and shellfish. A new rising sector will be the farming systems to produce proteins from insects.

Post-harvest: In agriculture, postharvest handling is the stage of crop production immediately following harvest, including cooling, cleaning, sorting, and packing. These activities take place at the farms before they will be delivered.

Food Processing: Food processing is the transformation of agricultural products into food, or of one form of food into other forms. Food processing includes many forms of processing, from grinding grain to make raw flour to home cooking to complex industrial methods used to make convenience foods.

Logistics Transport & Retail: Logistics and transport of agri-food products impose a time constraint to scheduled production processes and are important to prevent the loss of products and/or damage to product quality. Retail is making the products available for purchase, both business-to-business and business-to-consumer.

Sensing: Sensing in agri-food refers to the methods of acquiring digital data and information from various processes, objects (e.g. plants, machines and animals) and their environments with the use of sensors; moreover, with the capability to add a timestamp and geo-reference.

Data Processing & Infrastructure: Data processing is the process of bringing data to a desired location so that it can be used, checking and safeguarding its quality, and transforming it into meaningful information for different users according the FAIR principles. Data processing can happen locally at the data collection machinery or remotely in a data process centre, and it connects different actors through its data infrastructure.

Data Interpretation & Visualisation: The information extracted through data processing comes to value when it is interpreted in the right context such that it can lead to decisions that can be performed by robots or humans. Modelling, visualisation and advanced decision rules (e.g. Artificial Intelligence) are used in this technology field leading to corrective or preventative actions towards a desired outcome. Such conversion is considered as interpretation of the data.

Robotic Manipulation & Handling: To replace physical actions that humans do not want to do, or cannot do because circumstances do not allow it, a robot has to perform specific manipulations and handlings. Many robotic solutions require grasping and moving of objects with robotic arms mounted on a platform. In this field multi-dimensional manipulation of platforms, arms and actuators is core. Also the interaction of robots (robot-to-x interaction) with their environment is part of this technology field.

Robot Navigation & Co-operation: Every automated or robotic solution that needs to move through space to perform an activity, needs to be capable of navigating through said space. The concept of environmental perception for movement is referred to as Navigation. Robot co-operation includes mission planning, manoeuvre planning and motion planning. Upcoming is the field of co-operative robots where robots and humans work together to perform tasks.

ELSA and Business Modelling: The design of robotic solutions needs to deliver trusted, safe end ethical robotic systems. To support market introduction it is also important to incorporate business modelling, market information (product and labour), ethical values, legal issues, societal aspects, and training and education into the innovation process.