Electric agricultural robot combats labor shortages

Autonomous solutions have long been making waves in the agricultural sector, with robotic pickers, sprayers and planters seeing significant time and cost savings as industry members face continued labor shortages, high operational costs and yield insecurity.

Robotics Plus, a New Zealand-based agritech company, has unveiled an autonomous multi-use, modular vehicle platform for orchard and vineyard tasks designed to “alleviate ongoing labor shortages and transform the industry”.

The Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) is fitted with an array of vision systems and other environmental sensors to assess its environment and use the data collected to optimize its work. It can conduct a multitude of jobs such as spraying, weed control, mulching, mowing and crop analysis, and could ease ongoing pressure from labor shortages in the industry, with one operator able to control and monitor five UGVs at once.

Features include intelligent spraying, whereby the system adapts the flow rate depending on the section being sprayed and reduces unnecessary pesticide use, as well as Quantum sprayers with customizable configurations for different crop types and heights.

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