Field robot market: 55% more field robots in operation in 2022

Analysis of the number of operational field and harvest robots, reported by the participants in Future Farming’s robot catalogue, gives a clear indication of where the field robot market – or rather the adoption of robots – is heading. The statistics of 50 different robots show how many of them are actually out in the fields. These are solid statistics that are based on actual data, and not on predictions or sophisticated PR strategies. This makes these statistics very valuable.

Phased out robots excluded from field robot market analysis

Nonetheless, making some assumptions is unavoidable. Undisclosed or unknown sales numbers for instance can’t be taken into account. If numbers are unknown for 2022 but were known for 2021, then the 2021 numbers have been used for the 2022 statistics. The same goes for robots that have been phased out in 2022. Sales numbers of robots from manufacturers that ceased to exist in 2022 have been excluded from the statistics.

Last but not least, only robots from manufacturers included in the Future Farming buyers’ guide have been taken into account. This means that robots from manufacturers that refuse to provide a price indication are excluded (for example, Carbon Robotics, Easton Robotics, Harvest CROO, Muddy Machines and Raven).

Multi-purpose and harvest robots grow fastest

Multi-purpose field robots – those that can execute multiple tasks and jobs – remain the most popular category in the field robot market. A total of 965 of these are currently in operation worldwide, compared to 593 in late 2021 (growth rate: 63 percent). A total of 490 specialised field robots – those that execute a single task/job – are currently operational, compared to 344 in late 2021. That’s 42 percent more.

Harvest robots in operation grew from 8 to 14 units, a growth of 75 percent. Overall, 1,469 field and harvest robots are now assisting farmers worldwide compared to 945 robots in late 2021. That’s an increase of 55 percent.

Just over 3 percent (46 units) of the 1,469 field and harvest robots are accounted for by a dozen robots that are newly included in the robot catalogue. By late 2021, this dozen had just seven robots active, so that’s quite an impressive growth as well.