Hardware Podcasts

Episode Seven - Agricultural Robotics: Farming for the future

Robot Talk · 30 Apr 2021 · 28m · Episode 7

What this episode covers

Dr Petra Bosilj of the University of Lincoln explains that robotic vision in agriculture is bottlenecked by a lack of annotated training data for complex tasks like distinguishing weeds from crops, though precision spraying can reduce herbicide use by 80%. Chris Chavasse, founder of Muddy Machines, describes his startup's development of lightweight, swarm-capable field robots for harvesting tender stem broccoli, designed to reduce soil compaction compared to heavy industrial machinery. The episode contrasts academic research into phenotyping and soil health with the commercial challenges of building rugged, soft-robotic end effectors and securing funding during the pandemic.

Most relevant to

early-stage companies

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
University of Lincoln, Muddy Machines, Canaga Robotics, Dyson, Deliveroo, NASA
Also
First Lego League, RoboCup Junior, John Chen of Corbury Farm

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