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Technology is being developed at Harper Adams University in Shropshire with the aim to run a 35ha arable farm using robots, with no human in-field intervention.
Speaking at a NI Institute of Agricultural Science event on Tuesday, Kit Franklin from Harper Adams said that the new research will build on the Hands-Free Hectare project, which was launched in 2016.
Researchers successfully harvested a crop of spring barley in 2017, followed by winter wheat in 2018, without any machinery operators or agronomists entering the field.
Automated machines, such as a 38hp tractor and a 2m-wide combine harvester, completed all field work, with drones and small robots also used to view and sample crops in the field.
“In the near future we hope to be working on a full-scale, hands-free farm where we have multiple fields with various combinable crops, like cereals, peas and beans,” Franklin said.
The new project will be based on a real farm scenario, with uneven ground, irregular-shaped fields and obstacles such as trees and telegraph poles.
However, Franklin acknowledged that covering a larger acreage is a major challenge, as multiple automated tractors will need to work together, and tractors will need to come back to the yard more often for re-fuelling and re-filling seed, fertiliser and spray.
“There are a lot more challenges to face and not all of them have been solved by any means.
“Some of the technology we can re-apply, and some of it needs to be developed from scratch,” he said.
During his presentation, Franklin pointed out that automated technologies on commercial farms already exist, such as with high-value crops in horticulture.
“On cereal farms, I think you will start to see things that are driverless in the next 10 years. Arguably, a drone that you may be flying over your farm already is an autonomous vehicle,” he suggested.
“Our aim with Hands-Free Hectare was to show that robotic farming is not 50 years away,” Franklin said.
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