Agriculture 4.0: Autonomous field robot for sowing, weeding and plant care

Farmdroid ApS, Agritechnica 2019, Hall 25, Booth K31

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The FD20, a fully autonomous agricultural robot from the Danish manufacturer Farmdroid ApS, will make its debut at this year’s Agritechnica. The innovative, intelligent system, currently completely configured for processing sugar beets, rapeseed and vegetables on sandy and clay soils, handles all activities fully automatically, from sowing to plant care with weed control.

Kristian Warming, the company’s spokesman, explains: “After spring season with twelve commercial robots primarily running in sugar beet fields, we will present our FD20 agricultural robot at Agritechnica 2019, which we now manufacture in series. The farmers, who practice organic farming, all confirm the precision, effectiveness and efficiency of this innovative system”. Case studies show a return on investment within one to three years, depending on use.

The GPS-controlled FD20 for CO2-neutral use is electrically driven and generates the power required for the entire machining cycle itself. Integrated solar cells continuously charge the battery. This also makes the system independent of external charging stations. Thanks to the intelligent load distribution, the robot prevents additional soil compaction at its total weight of almost 700 kilograms, thus preserving the microclimate and soil structure.

High precision thanks to internal data memory

During fully automatic sowing, the FD20 stores the position of each individual seed for capacities of up to 20 hectares. This ensures the highest possible precision during subsequent crop maintenance. There is no need for the farmer to monitor the robot, as the internal self-monitoring complies with the current EU safety stan­dards. Continuous selective weed control is exclusively mechanical. The tools work both between the crops and between the rows. In this way, the robot offers an effective weed control for organic farming and economical alternative to weed control with herbicides.

The FD20 is currently available in a fixed configuration for processing sugar beet, rapeseed and vegetables.