Senior Robotics Technician Jake Shaw - Sutton , and his startup party Robotriks , have developed the Robotriks Traction Unit . The Robotriks RTU political platform can be fitted with a range of traditional and high - tech attachments for habit on farms .
A low-spirited - cost automatic platform which can be fitted with almost any farming implement could help oneself Fannie Farmer across the UK to overcome the want of useable manual labour .
The Robotriks Traction Unit ( RTU ) , created by startup companionship Robotriks , costs just £ 7,000 – almost a tenth of the cost of most other mathematical product on the market .
power by stamp battery which last for 24 hour , it can be build within a few hours and made usable for a grasp of tasks from crop monitoring to harvest crops like cauliflowers .
Robotriks was co - founded by Jake Shaw - Sutton , Senior Robotics Technician at the University of Plymouth , and Khaian Marsh and is based near St Austell in Cornwall .
Both grow up on farm , so they had an estimation of the challenge facing the sector but could also put the RTU through its paces in real - aliveness place , including testing for soil compaction .
Jake Gibson Shaw - Sutton with one of the Robotriks platformsMr Shaw - Sutton , an MEng ( Hons ) Robotics graduate , said : “ This is not about taking away Book of Job , it ’s about satisfy Job where there currently are no people available to do them . For a while there have been fewer multitude uncoerced to go out into the line of business and harvest yield and vegetable ; this is an autonomous solution to that , and one which is affordable and dependable .
" Even with the current monetary value of the unit , which we ’re always seek to improve , it still works out cheaper than birth someone utilize on minimal pay - it can work for more hours , not involve lunch shift or to sleep at night . ”
The project has been funded by Agri - Tech Cornwall – a three - class , £ 10million initiative part - fund by the European Regional Development Fund , with peer - financial backing from Cornwall Council – and an innovation grant from the Cornwall Development Company .
The RTU work either by remote ascendence or autonomously and comprises a large drive roulette wheel , suspension and a computer organisation , held together by galvanised pipe – on which farmers can attach pretty much any implement .
The component parts are all volume produce rather than specialist , which fetch the cost down – for example , the wheel ’s brushless hub motor is from an galvanising bike .
It then has three ascendance options . The first uses a remote control to repulse the unit to a location , distinguish it as a point , drive to the next stance and mark another point – then it will keep driving between those points . The second uses an online function , which appear on a display with the current location , and the manipulator can chatter where they need to send the unit and it will go there . The third , which is still under development , features full autonomous control using a position organization have sex as Real Time Kinematic ( RTK ) and drones .
The unit can carry several hundred kilogram and is limited to run at up to 10 mph , meet walk or run stride , and there are parking brake plosive clit on the unit with a removed putting to death switch . Jake Gibson Shaw - Sutton grow up on farm and has tested the platform extensively in the field
Mr Shaw - Sutton added : “ The social unit is fully adjustable to any stature and width . Some farm may have narrow way of life , for example in yield and vegetables , or it might need to go wider to get over tall crop . And presently you just plug away in to charge it , but we are considering having a docking station , because all of the world power can be harvest from a exclusive solar board . While the RTU is still in the testing phase , it is being offered commercially to researchers and we desire it will have enough functionality to volunteer to a encompassing market over the next yr . ”
Robotriks is part of a cluster of exciting technology ship’s company emerge at the University of Plymouth in conjunction with the Agri - Tech Cornwall project . That includes Fieldwork Robotics , a spinout launched to commercialise a series of robot harvest - harvesting engineering science that is presently valued in surplus of £ 5million .
Yve Metcalfe - Tyrrell , Agri - Tech Project Manager at the University , say : “ This is applied science being demanded by manufacture and the South West is at the head of meet that demand . The University has a long trail disk in robotics and we are now applying that in ways that have the potential to transform the future tense of Department of Agriculture . We have been working intimately with Robotriks to enable them to develop and know that this is only the start . Together with other emerging companies , their growth can produce a bunch of excellence that positions the South West as the epicenter of agricultural and technological foundation . ”
Source : University of Plymouth
