The development and utilisation of autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence to grow and harvest food is gathering traction across the agriculture sector. Automation has become a critical element in sustainable food production, and robots and AI are now advanced enough to be used for non-standardised tasks such as weeding, crop sensing, and fruit picking. Many jobs are able to be improved, if not replaced, by robots.
Farming is complex and many stakeholders across the agriculture sector are involved in running the business, from farm managers and agronomists to supply chain representatives, insurers and policy makers. When developing any agricultural technology, innovators must think holistically about how the tech will be used on-farm, who will be involved in its use, and who it might impact more broadly.
Agri-EPI Centre’s 2021 Agricultural Technology Hackathon sought to identify solutions to enhance the safety and security of autonomous farm machines. Agri-EPI ran the initiative with Innovate UK-funded Hands Free Farm, a testbed for autonomous farm machinery and drones. The teams which took part came from a range of disciplines, including robotics, AI & machine learning, drones and computer vision.
They came together to address the following challenges:
- Detecting people entering and exiting operational areas
- Communicating about the operation of unmanned vehicles
- Providing safety and other information and advice
- Managing human-machine interaction
This industry paper has been released in collaboration with stakeholders from across the agri-tech sector to offer recommendations around the future development of autonomous agricultural solutions. It raises a series of considerations around agriculture’s readiness for large scale adoption of autonomous vehicles and offers recommendations around maximising safety, improving connectivity, and combating future technology threats.
The full Hackathon whitepaper can be accessed here.
