MARS Project at the Hannover Messe

The Hannover Messe is considered the world’s most important industry trade fair. Under the motto “Get technology first”, US President Barack Obama and Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the exhibition in Hanover, the capitol of Lower Saxony, on 24 April. The field robotics concept MARS presented itself as one of the most attractive projects of the Echord++ programme in the pavilion of the European Commission (DG Connect).

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“The visitors that come to our stand are very international,” says project manager Thiemo Buchner from AGCO/Fendt Advanced Engineering, describing the atmosphere at the trade fair. “No matter if they were from Turkey, Africa, Japan, India or the USA, up to now everyone was surprised by the small size of the robotic units,” says Thiemo Buchner. The scalability and flexibility of the concept was also very well received. In particular visitors from countries where many things are still done by hand, such as India and Africa, are excited about the MARS Project, because they see the use of small seeding robots as a great simplification of work and as an innovative, but realistic, approach.

On Tuesday, the EU commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, Günther Oettinger, visited the Hannover Messe. He was interested in the major topic “Industry 4.0” and the associated massive upheaval of the operating processes within companies, as they prepare themselves to react flexibly and individually to market demands and customer wishes in the future.

The EU Commissioner informed himself about the implementation of “Industry 4.0” in farming and agricultural engineering through Project manager Thiemo Buchner. He explained the EU-funded MARS Project to him, where the exact position of each seed is saved to permit targeted application of fertilisers and pesticides at a later time. “The individualised application of fertiliser, pesticides or also water through the use of intelligent agricultural robotics is a project that I find very convincing. Its significance will increase in the future due to limited resources as well as environmental protection issues,” says Günther Oettinger.