Danish innovator AgriRobot plans to bolster the safety of agricultural robots with its certifiable software, boosted through a recent funding round, paving the way for a “new era of efficient and sustainable farming.” The total raised capital is now €2.5 million (US$2.62 million), which the firm plans to use to speed up its operations and spread awareness of its solutions that remove the need for human involvement in monitoring robots in agricultural fields.

The company was founded in 2021 by experts in advanced robotics, agricultural compliance and functional safety analysis. It develops safety solutions for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to enable the transition from semi-to-fully autonomous operations.

“Robots have different applications when looking at agriculture as a whole, including milking, feeding, washing, fruit picking and tillage. Their role is to perform the operations that people don’t want to do anymore such as uniform and trivial work that involves long hours,” Lynge Jacobsen, co-founder and chief commercial officer at AgriRobot, tells Food Ingredients First.

While autonomous tractors and robots provide stable, efficient and consistent performance, Jacobsen stresses the need for software to ensure human safety and desired compliance levels.

“Safety software for obstacle detection and geofencing is required so any OEM of a robot can ensure that the robot does not drive into objects such as humans, animals or anything that could damage the robot itself. It is important to have software that can detect relevant unforeseen objects in the operational area of a robot and to ensure that the robot stays within the field boundary.”

Software that detects relevant unforeseen objects in the operational area of a robot are important, says Jacobsen. Photo by: AgriRobot

“On top of that, the software needs to reach a certain compliance level in order to fulfill legislation,” he adds.

Enhancing operations

The safety software is modular and easily scalable, which allows manufacturers to integrate it with various autonomous agricultural systems.

“By addressing critical safety challenges, AgriRobot’s software empowers farmers to increase efficiency, reduce labor costs and enhance crop quality while minimizing risks,” says Chris Edwards, managing partner at Tall Grass Ventures, which participated in the funding led by Norminal Ventures.

The company plans to use the cash injection “primarily to invest in competencies that are not yet present in our organization,” Jacobsen tells us.

“We are already looking to hire quality assurance and dev-ops personnel and further down the line, we will be looking for sales and marketing personnel, too. We have also started work on creating more awareness of our solution through stronger communication.”

Scaling robot usage

Jabcobsen shares that the firm aims to offer farmers an autonomous robot that can operate without any physical supervision and is compliant with relevant ISO standards.

“A farmer will be less likely to invest in a robot if he has to stay in the field for safety reasons. The vast majority of OEMs have very little time and the required competency to solve what is required for a certifiable safety solution and we would like to support them by building and maintaining the software system they require.”

He explains that AgriRobot’s software is an “enabler” and will help increase robot usage in agriculture.

“We do not have any direct influence on how a crop or the soil works, but a safety solution is a qualifier for all OEMs who want to provide solutions for more sustainable farming practices.”

The company is now focusing on reaching its “first” compliance product with its first customer in 2025, which Jacobsen considers a “major milestone” for the company.

“Step by step we hope to earn a position in the market where AgriRobot is the preferred ‘go to’ company for certifiable obstacle detection that enables full autonomy.”

Declining labor?

FAO figures released in 2023 reported 1.23 billion people as being employed in global agri-food systems in 2019. Out of these, 857 million worked in primary agricultural production and 375 million in the off-farm segments of agri-food systems.

But today, a digital revolution is taking hold, highlights a World Bank Group report on the future of work in agriculture. It affects agricultural labor and skill demands, leading to societies evolving from having a “surplus to a shortage of domestic farm labor.”

While the demands are usually met largely by foreign agricultural wage workers, anti-immigration sentiments are a concern and robots in the fields and packing plants offer an alternative, the report highlights.

A relatively small and diminishing contribution of agriculture to GDP and the “negative public perception” of the sector with comparatively low wages and limited career prospects, further compound the challenge, states the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Jacaobsen sees agri-robots or driverless tractors as a “valuable solution” to these labor shortage concerns as they offer various applications for farmers.

“I also believe that future farming will increase production standards as farmers become more and more skilled in using the extensive amount of information that will be retrieved from the robots operating in the fields,” he concludes.

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