HortiBot - A Plant Nursing Robot

Collaboration between people and robots in future crop production


Brief description of project aim and content

The aim is to have an accessory kit for a mass produced, commercial, and robust tool carrier, which enables an automatic execution of repeated and backbreaking manual weeding at outdoor gardening sites. Today Danish organic outdoor gardeners use 50-300 hours per hectare on manual weeding. By means of an automatic control of an existing commercial machine, this normally stressful and costly manual weeding operation is reduced or phased out. Concurrently, a full automatic data logging will contribute to an efficient implementation of EEC directive 178/2002 about traceability within the primary production and hence improve the food safety within the production chain.

 

Vision

At the dealer the outdoor gardener orders an automatic tool carrier (HortiBot) to weed his fields grown with for example planted organic onions. The HortiBot consist of a mass produced machine onto which the robot accessory kit has been mounted. The operator will after less that one hour instruction and by use of pictograms be able to operate the HortiBot. A weeding tool is mounted at the HortiBot, which enables removal of all weeds within the onion rows and also just next to the onions. The HortiBot is started by placing it at the end of a parcel. Hereafter, the number of parcels to weed, and whether the next parcel is located to the left of right in relation to the first, is entered. The operator presses start and the weeding operation is initiated. The new job for the operator is now just to survey one or several weeding robots instead of himself performing the manual and backbreaking work.

Illustration of the synergy obtained by combining the commercial remote controlled Spider (top left) with the autonomous AgRobot research platform (top left) from The Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Agricultural Engineering. The vision is the Spider mounted with the HortiBot accessory kit, which transform it into a tool carrier for high-tech weeding for example of organic grown onions (middle). The bottom picture shows the delivery from this project – a robust and simple tool carrier of for the outdoor gardener. The HortiBot is further equipped with a future developed laser weeding tool from another research project.

 
Organization of the project and key competences of the participants

The project will be coordinated by The Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Agricultural Engineering, with expertise within technologies for precision weeding, robot technology for agricultural purposes, and machinery management. The additional partners in the project are Vitus Bering with competences within hydraulics, electrical control, and software development; Special Maskiner with many years experience within specialized machinery to nurse green areas; Eco-Dan a/s, which is the leading supplier of vision based solutions for automatic tool guidance within row crops; Gartneriet Inge-Marienlund, owned by Axel Månsson a/s, which is the largest producer in Denmark of garden lettuce, china cabbage, and organic onions, which is grown as a part of the approximately 170 hectare farmed according to organic principles.

Participants
 Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences, DIAS Bygholm

Vitus Bering (CVU), Horsens, Denmark

Special Maskiner, Denmark

ECO-DAN

Axel Månsson a/s

Project Co-ordinator
Rasmus Nyholm Jørgensen, Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Research Centre Bygholm


Further details on the research project on the Project homepage www.hortibot.dk

November 2005