Demonstrate time-critical pest management and robotization of heavy machinery fleets in grassland management, while being environmentally and economically sustainable.

Rapeseed field

The pilot focuses on sustainable and resource-efficient rapeseed farming and grasslands through the development and validation of new Integrated Pest Management (IPM) practices and increasing work resources in critical time periods such as silage scenarios with the robotization of heavy machinery fleets in grassland management.

Satellite imagery and IoT sensing systems placed in the fields will provide relevant data to support decision making on the farm and to coordinate collaborative tasks among robotic systems.

UGVs will be responsible for:

  1. Close recognition of areas with possible insects in rapeseed: Based on the geolocated reference provided by drones or sensorised traps, ground robots will approach the areas to verify the potentially affected area and send spectral images to the data centre.
  2. Rumex plant weeding in grasslands: Equipped with a robotic arm for manipulation features, the UGV will be able to efficiently remove weed either by pulling the whole plan from the ground or by cutting the upper part of the plant for preventing the seeding of the plant.

UAVs will perform tasks as:

  1. Grass and rapeseed status mapping: Ensure up-to-date knowledge of the fields through traditional mapping with diverse spectral instruments.
  2. Close range insect spotting: Collection of geolocated close-range images for insect analysis.
  3. Situation awareness of tractor fleets: Ensure independent situation awareness for safety and management by supervising the autonomous tractors during silage production
  4. Pesticide spraying: Drones with spraying capabilities will be used for hotspot pesticide spraying.

In addition, robotised tractors will perform typical precision farming ISOBUS-tasks. The tractors will perform typical farming tasks within the silage production fleets and variable rate pesticide spraying on the fields. Autonomous driving will be managed via ISOBUS-extension from FMIS platforms.

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