Corteva leverages mobile robots to walk row crops

Corteva Agriscience is working to take agricultural robotics to new heights using a Spot robot from Boston Dynamics. The company uses this platform, nicknamed “Annie”, to ‘walk’ between rows of corn, sunflowers and more.

Applications in field testing

Corteva says the robot has potential applications in field testing of both new seed and crop protection solutions with its ability to autonomously collect large amounts of data, support the application of new crop protection discovery molecules, and inspect operations.

Spot’s capabilities are to help Corteva more fully understand complex phenotypes to support its research and development selection processes.

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“Annie’s proximal sensing capabilities and ability to execute specific actions at a certain plot or by individual plant will help us challenge assumptions about the way things are done,” said Geoff Graham, leader of seed product development for Corteva Agriscience.

Autonomous robot to navigate row crop fields

“The ability to leverage an autonomous robot to navigate row crop fields, while carrying and pulling instruments to collect data or apply chemicals more efficiently, has tremendous potential as we push the boundaries of what we can deliver to farmers”, Graham said.

Corteva is also collaborating with Trimble for the initial proof-of-concept and to integrate precise GPS guidance technologies with the Spot robot platform.