
As part of the agROBOfood project, BioSense Institute is providing support to the QualiSpot Industrial Challenge experiment, chosen and awarded through an open call.
Background information
The goal of the agROBOfood project is to encourage the effective application of robotic technologies in the agricultural and food sectors. Such an application is QualiSpot; a solution that offers a wide range of components intended for common and intelligent spray robots.
One of agROBOfood’s partners and Digital Innovation Hub is BioSense Institute; a Research and Development Institute for IT in biosystems and a pioneer in digital transformation of agriculture in Serbia.
BioSense explores scientific and technological frontiers regarding the application of IT in agriculture and strives to deliver state-of-the- art digital solutions to the farming sector.
BioSense explores scientific and technological frontiers regarding the application of IT in agriculture and strives to deliver state-of-the- art digital solutions to the farming sector in Serbia and the world, in order to ensure higher yields with smaller investments.
Spot Spraying and the Future of Farming
QualiSpot demonstrates how optimized spraying leads to improved environmental conditions due to significant inherent pesticide savings.
The predecessor project FieldCompanion allowed Ambimetrics, together with its partners, to construct spot spray components at TRL6.
To allow successful market rollout, the spot spray components delivered to machinery manufacturers, have to meet very tight quality standards and be backward compatible with the fleets of machines already deployed across the Globe.
The important thing to point out is that QualiSpot not only strives to develop new technology but also drives quality and market maturity of existing components to generate global market impact. Taking into account design, manufacturing, and service delivery throughout QualiSpot production process, creates a powerful solution that meets the requirements and needs of modern farming.
Fully aligned with the quest for a sustainable future, QualiSpot acknowledges and supports the strategies put forward by the EU’s Green Deal, the Biodiversity and the Farm to Fork Strategy, as well as the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, for a sustainable future where “nobody is left behind”.
Challenges and way forward
In a recent interview provided by Christian Rodriguez (one of QualiSpot team leaders) to BioSense Institute, special mention was made to the problems faced by manufacturers of robotic components in today’s complex landscape.
From a business perspective, the most important issue for Ambimetrics…is our position in the product supply chain: we are on the lower side of it.
We only develop a part of the whole product independently from the sector we work in so we depend on others to put our products on the market… we depend on farmers being interested in the sprayer sold by our direct client. Sprayer prize, marketing and the whole performance are out of our scope.
As regards the reasoning for participating in agROBOfood’s Industrial Challenge, Mr. Rodriguez referred to the need to connect, as a component developer, with downstream machinery manufacturers to bring our custom-made components to international markets.
Therefore, through agROBOfood’s dynamic network, the company can find the tools and connections to reach the global market and succeed in it.
As for the future, the main objective of Qualispot is to assure that existing spot spraying components meet customers’ quality needs, while at the same time maintaining AMBI’s ability to swiftly and cost-efficiently react to new customer/market requirements.
Solutions that solve actual problems
Ambimetrics has been able to change their development processes from top to bottom both in the software area and the hardware. Having introduced the Continuous Integration system within their projects, allows them to detect bugs sooner in the development process.
Moreover, they have also introduced a Test-Driven Design standpoint, creating a great base of tests for all the already developed codes. As for new functionalities for each software release, new codes were added. This resulted in fewer bugs, better quality and greater reliability for the end-users.
On the hardware side, several automated testers and simulators were created for QualiSpot components to ensure analysis of more devices in less time, while avoiding human action.
How to deal with increased demand & maintain high quality?
There are two ways to ensure higher production rate and high quality at the same time.
The first step is to ensure validation of upward supply chain provider elements. The second is to make sure that the manufactured components are free of design/components bugs in a fast, traceable way.
On the field, Qualispot has allowed us to put to test our latest developments. In this area, the most important thing we figured out is the lack of suitable measurement tools for precision agriculture in the sector. Coming from very demanding sectors concerning accuracy, traceability and precision, we are facing a shortage of “good” tools to demonstrate our components (and so the client´s robot sprayers which use them) are capable of being as efficient as we state.
Global impact & Competitive edge
So far, the robotic spot sprayers and the sprayers using QualiSpot components are gaining technical awards in national and international exhibitions concerning innovation (from 2014).
On the field, farmers and researchers are sowing significant benefits thanks to the unique combination of sprayer technology and QualiSpot control systems and other components.
QualiSpot and Agriculture
QualiSpot has given AMBIMETRICS the chance to deepen its knowledge into agriculture services and get the chance to produce market-ready, high-tech devices for agricultural companies and end-users.
Read the full interview here.

A disruptive product that will revolutionize the robotics industry
agROBOfood is very happy to announce that Automationware, a company in the North East Europe Regional Cluster, dedicated to the development of cutting-edge robotic and mechatronic technologies, won the Roberto Maietti award for Advanced Robotics in the edition of SPS 2022 in Parma, for the robot called ‘AW-Combo’.
Proudly presenting: AW Combo
The Prize was awarded for a new product AW Combo, sponsored by the EU community https://agrobofood.eu/experiments/, a 15-axis Mobile Collaborative Cobot with extraordinary maneuvering capacity for production chains and smart factories. This system is decidedly innovative, developed by a team of young AW engineers with the support of Fraunhofer Italia, and has unique collaborative robotic technologies of their kind.
Details about the AW Combo
A robot with agility of movement in the working area has an omnidirectional AMR (8 axes) and a robotic arm with 6 degrees of freedom ‘+ gripper, capable of lifting even very high payloads. The management of the robot is comprehensive and wirelessly controlled, and in the future it can be connected to the 5G network.
Fields of application
Indispensable for addressing production issues in the food and Pharma sector, where a low contaminating impact is required, but also for the management of production lines, avoiding tiring and repetitive loading / unloading work for humans.
Thanks to its characteristics, the robot can also be used in advanced logistics or in e-commerce situations to load or unload packages autonomously, moving around the work area with respect to different points, in full autonomy but with safety technology. (Laser scanner and 3D camera), avoiding impacts with people or things.
A disruptive product that will revolutionize the way robotics are done in modern smart and logistics situations with high turnover. Thanks to its qualities, it can also be adopted in different sectors such as for example that for machine tending, or in the management of the end of the production line, now enslaved by large and potentially dangerous anthropomorphic robots for working with line operators.
About Automationware
Automationware is a company that operates in the province of Venice, has been producing actuators with a high technological impact since 2002.
The company invests mainly in research, in particular in advanced robotics, with the aim of becoming an Italian hub for NextGen robotics and systems integration for robotize production and logistics processes.
AW has been part of the HIND spa group since 2021, a group with a turnover of over 200M euros and over 1000 employees, which operates in various market sectors, mainly in the fashion sector, but which invests in the development of strategic sectors in the supply chains. Italians with strong growth content.
Stay in touch
For any information please contact marketing@automationware.it

Smart Agri Hubs Final Event
26 to 28 September 2022
Lisbon, Portugal
On Tuesday 27 and Wednesday 28 September, the SmartAgriHubs ecosystem will open its doors to the European agricultural and digital innovation community!
Workshops & lectures will be held on the challenges, and opportunities that are present in the digitalisation process of the agrifood sector. Several Horizon 2020 projects will be present and an exhibition will be open for representatives of the industry.
ROBOTICS IN AGRIFOOD WORKSHOP
agROBOfood is very excited to participate with the workshop “Robotics in agrifood” that will be held at the first “Synergy Day” of the SmartAgriHubs Final Event (27/09/22) at 15:15. We hope to see you there and discuss the ways in which we can boost the adoption of robotics in agriculture practices in order to improve the farmer’s working conditions, generate higher yields and improve overall quality.
Details about the workshop
Date: 27 September 2022
Time: 15:15 – 16:00
Presenter: Erik Pekkeriet
Link with more details here
Registration link here
Venue: Lisbon Congress Center
Address: Praca Industrias, Lisbon 1300-307 Portugal
SYNERGY PROJECTS; SmartAgriHubs & agROBOfood
Besides the workshop presented by agROBOfood’s North West regional cluster leader, Erik Pekkeriet, our project will also have the chance to present its achievements and lessons learnt during the first part of the “Pitch for Synergy Projects” taking place on 27/09/22 at 09:30 in the morning (Auditorium).
The Synergy Day will enhance the collaboration across Europe and strenghten the SmartAgriHubs and the agROBOfood ecosystems by fostering cooperation, discussion and exchange of best practices!
This is important because we believe that though communication and knowledge sharing we can expand our ecosystem and help to create a positive and long-lasting change in the European agriculture sector, by integrating robots and drones and other important emerging technologies.
About agROBOfood
agROBOfood is an EU funded project with the aim to build a European ecosystem that works for the effective adoption of robotic technologies in the agri food sector.
The heart of the project is formed by Innovation Experiments, organized and monitored by Digital Innovation Hubs. In 7 Regional Clusters, Initial Innovation Experiments will demonstrate robotics innovations in agrifood, in a manner that ensures replicability.
Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs) will support companies in digitization by connecting various stakeholders; The world of Robotics and Agriculture, R&D and business and of course the end-users and technology providers.
Important Information
To be able to register for the SmartAgriHubs Final Event, you must be a user of the Innovation Portal.
The SmartgriHubs team will use this powerful tool to centralise the registrations and at a later stage organise matchmaking activities with the participants of the Final Event.
The registration to the Innovation Portal is free.
Registrations will close on 21 September 2022.
Browse through the complete agenda of the SAH Event here
Follow this link and register until 21/09/2022

Dear agROBOfood readers,
Please take a closer look at this upcoming joint workshop organised on 12-13 October 2022 and come join us!
An exciting event jointly organised by CNRS-2RM and agROBOfood’s France-Italy regional cluster is going to take place on Wednesday and Thursday 12-13 October 2022 at the premises of INRAE AgroTechnopôle facilities, in Montoldre, Clermont-Ferrand, 03150, France.
The two networks (agROBOfood & CNRS-2RM) will organise this joint 2-day event that will culminate in a unique workshop held on the second day, i.e. on Thursday 13 October (in English).
The focus of this workshop is twofold:
- To Share knowledge and to demonstrate some of the existing tools and practices relating to the Testing & Performance Validation of mobile field robots and
- To exchange views on the existing and emerging Robotics Capabilities enabled by AI in agri-food domain applications
The workshop is open to the agROBOfood network as well as to the participants of the local event organised by INRAE and CNRS-2RM planned for 12 October. The focus of the later is on the French national approaches for the sharing of experiences, tools and infrastructures that are necessary for experimental field robotics. The presentations of the first-day (12 October) will be mainly in French but the slides presented will be in English. To be noted that Q&A time and discussion that will follow after the presentations will be in English.
Draft program of the first day of the event here.
Draft program of the second day of the event here.
Register using the form here.
Important Information
Participation is free but REGISTRATION is needed before 01/10/2022.
All interested participants can attend both events. Please send your request for registration or any questions you may have to farzam.ranjbaran@cea.fr or frederic.colledani@cea.fr
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