New Zealand farmer struggles to fully tame his 6 Burro field robots
The integration of robots into farms continues to transform modern agriculture, offering innovative solutions to improve efficiency and reduce costs. In New Zealand, the Burro robot is beginning to find its place on farms, demonstrating its potential through testimonials from local farmers. With Future Farming, we followed Chris, from Agri-Automation, distributor of the machine, on two of these demonstrations. We also met Mitchel, orchard manager at 45S south, who invested 6 months ago in a fleet of 6 burro machines.
The Burro robot is designed for maximum flexibility, with four distinct operating modes. In manual mode, it is mainly used for logistics, such as trailer loading. The camera-guided Inrow mode is often used for moving in the rows during harvesting. The more complex A-B Track mode, combining GPS points and camera guidance, is ideal for tasks requiring precise trajectories pattern, such as harvesting assistance, bird scaring or mowing. Finally, the Follow Me mode is used for logistics or harvesting assistance. Highly adaptable, Burro offers numerous options for use, including mowing, bird scaring, scouting, weed spraying, harvesting assistance and much more…
Ease of use and ergonomics
The Burro robot stands out for its ease of use and ergonomics. All basic operations are performed via a small, user-friendly screen, where only basic functions are easily accessible, while advanced parameters are more difficult to reach to avoid incorrect manipulations. Getting to grips with the machine is quick, even for novice workers, thanks to three additional buttons on the machine: a forward arrow, a backward arrow and a stop button.
For advanced management, Burro features an online portal providing access to all robot data, cameras and custom mapping. This access is reserved exclusively for the robot owner. Mission programming, though slightly more complex, is accessible to trained users. The robot uses a portable or fixed RTK base for reference points, enabling missions to be programmed using reference points.
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Vineyards
During our visit, Burro robots were demonstrated at one of the largest vineyards in the Marlborough region. Although the harvest season can last up to two months, only 1% of this vineyard is harvested by hand, leaving little time for the robot to operate. The vineyard manager told us, “He sees the value in harvesting, but for him it’s not enough – the machine needs to run more!”
Once installed, the two Burro robots made the same trips back and forth between the rows and the unloading area as the quads. Although the robots can only carry 12 basins weighing 8 to 10 kg, compared with 26 for an ATV, the two of them easily managed to replace a quad bike and two people.
The main difficulty for this vineyard lies in the fact that it works with an external company for manual labor, which implies language barriers and the need to continually train workers. In addition, Chris confides that a larger fleet of machines is needed to see a consistent and measurable change in productivity. The winery prefers to rent the machine until other tasks can be found to use it all year round.
A robot still struggling to integrate itself into the farm organization
Automating and anticipating logistics is a major challenge, as it requires precise planning and constant adaptation to changing organization. Ongoing training of new employees, often necessary due to staff turnover, further complicates robot integration. Off-grid recharging and power supply for various tasks also pose significant logistical challenges.
The robot’s interaction with the canopy and its camera’s lack of discernment in detecting obstacles are further technical obstacles. Harvesting does not represent enough working time; it is crucial to find additional tasks for the robot during the rest of the season to maximize its use and return on investment. Implementing the Burro may take some time at first, but this versatile robot can everything, with time and adaptation, it has the potential to transform farming practices significantly.
A fleet of 6 robots on the farm, results of a first season
After six months of use and over 200 hours of work, mainly on the harvesting season, Mitchel farm is testing two robots: one for mowing and another for scaring birds. The first year has been used to better understand the system and its limits. Mitchel told us that profitability will come from reducing the number of drivers, multiplying the number of passes and inputs costs.
During the two months of harvest, the robots were assigned to each skip picker. At present, there is no reduction in staff, but an improvement in working conditions. Each robot transports 15 bins per man at the rear of the machine, using In row or Follow Me mode, in teams of 40 harvesters. Next year will be crucial in assessing whether the number of harvesters can be reduced.
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A mowing solution was tested this year and should be replaced by a more mature version next year. The aim was to identify the limits of the robots for these tasks and to forecast their future use. The robot pulls 3 basic push mowers, which must be started manually. This first version is very noisy, does not communicate with the robot and runs out of fuel before the robot batteries. The machines have been modified to adapt to the mowers. The robots mow a width of 1.90 m with three thermal mowers. Additional batteries were added, along with GPS and an enhanced cellular connection to improve navigation performance despite the high canopy.
For few weeks, a robot was used to scare away birds in a field, simply by attaching speakers to the XL version of the robot, with wider wheel spacing for greater stability. The robot was programmed to navigate different areas of the field. The results were very conclusive, and this method will be deployed on a larger scale next year.
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