robot crop inspector 'SentiV' wheels itself into the fields to detect harvest threats

Rotating field robot ‘SentiV’ from Meropy

Farmers and agriculturists have found their new assistant through a robot crop inspector for field use, equipped with sensors and cameras that can wheel itself around 20 hectares per day to detect potential and grave threats to the crops. Dubbed a scouting robot, SentiV makes use of its near-sensing abilities to keep its eye on the crops. Think of protective security staff, only for farms and fields and without hands and feet.

Dedicated to agricultural professionals, SentiV from robotics company Meropy can improve farmers’ practices as it can advise solutions for the crops and optimize the phenotyping on experimental plots. Once the robot crop inspector rolls its way into the cropland, it gathers data which is then flashed within variability maps.

With this approach, farmers can receive better farming information and take immediate action on their crops. They can also gain profits because of the improved yield and crop quality. Indirectly speaking, the robot crop inspector can provide a better quality of life to the farmers and agricultural professionals since SentiV can save more labor time compared to manually working in the fields.

images courtesy of Meropy

Autonomously inspecting the crops

Once in place, SentiV by Meropy can autonomously move by detecting the location where it has been set up and coming back to its place even without an operator nearby. The plot is surveyed and analyzed in its entirety, covering up to 20 hectares per day.

The robot crop inspector has two cameras that scan over and under the foliage. ‘With time, we plan to add other sensors according to the types of data to be detected,’ the team behind SentiV says. Since harvest can grow tall, the design team has taken a step ahead of the concern and turned SentiV into a flexible robot crop device.

Its width, height, and mode of motion are all adjustable to better adapt to the type of plants and crops being studied and to adjust well following the growth of the harvest. The design team says its robot crop inspector does not damage the fields, thanks to its lightness (overall weight of 15 kilos) and the wheel system that does not stump the vegetation.

the robot crop inspector ‘SentIV’ can roam around 20 hectares per day

Powered by AI

SentiV is powered by artificial intelligence which runs a series of algorithms that allow for the collection and review of data. Through these, the robot crop inspector can monitor the nutrient and water requirements of crops for variable rate seeding or spraying and optimize phenotyping.

SentiV can also identify the presence of biological threats: weeds, diseases, and pests, and know the phenological stages for crop growth monitoring. The design team says that, unlike existing remote sensing solutions, images captured by the robot’s sensor provide more details than what can be seen by a human eye.

The claimed high-resolution images of the robot allow the farmers and agricultural professionals to zoom in and out of the photos to see what is happening in their crops before stepping into the fields and looking for the problems themselves. ‘Besides, the robot also scans under the crop canopy, soil and under leaves included,’ the Sentiv team says.

robot crop inspector ‘SentiV’ in action