Founder Agovor: ‘A lot of small growers are not being serviced by technology’

Founder and Director Richard Beaumont (left) and Co-Founder Simon Carroll. – Photos: Agovor

New Zealand company Agovor has launched an autonomous lightweight electric tractor, designed to automate outdoor manual labour tasks for row based and specialty crops.

GOVOR is designed for autonomous towing with capabilities including spraying, mowing, data collection, and crop scouting. GOVOR stands out due to its light weight of only 50 kgs. It has an electric motor with direct drive transmission. Future Farming asked Founder and Director Richard Beaumont some questions about the development and benefits of GOVOR.

I understand you got the idea for GOVOR when New Zealand was in a full lockdown. Your nursery went from 30 to 5 staff, and you were only allowed to look after the plants. Why did you choose to build a robot?

“There were only five of us in the nursery. When I was going up and down the rows spraying, I was thinking ‘we definitely have to do some things more efficiently’. I had already seen some machines that are out there, in Germany for example. I had a list with problems that we had, and one of our biggest problems was weeding.”

“I started talking with some engineering mates to solve some problems, and we didn’t even know we were going to build a robot. That was not our intention. Co-founder Simon Carroll, who is an automation engineer, started thinking about different things. RTK GPS pricing decreased significantly, and we looked down that path. We ended up developing a robot, that can autonomously can go up and down rows.“

“We now get our parts from different suppliers around the world and assemble them here in New Zealand. We are in the process of getting orders and make a decent build number on that.”

_{Text continues below picture}

Why did you choose to build an electric lightweight robot?

“We wanted to solve more than one issue, and not do things the way we had been doing them. Our rows are spaced at 900 millimetre centres, so it is quite narrow. That decided on the width of the robot. An electric robot just made sense because of the amount of energy that you need to make a small vehicle going down the rows. We’ve got a 12 hour runtime with our units.”

Can you say something about the research and development stage. I understand you had over 2 years of field testing in challenging environments encountering narrow rows, turbulent weather and rugged terrain, and development has continued to been shaped by customer feedback. What where the main obstacles?

“Changing conditions proved to be an obstacle. But also thinking about the attachments. Whatever point you’re at, that is always the biggest problem. There was a lot of trialling and error during the prototyping phase, just running it up and down the rows and seeing what issues we would get with path planning or different soil conditions for example. But we were really focused on what we were trying to achieve, making it as easy as possible for the user. We are now up to generation 4 of our robot.”

What are the benefits of this type of lightweight tractor?

“The manoeuvrability of this kind of tractor is great. And because it is lightweight, two people can lift it, and it probably fits in the back of a car. There is hardly any effect on soil compaction. And – what also comes with that – is that you can get back on the land sooner after a weather event. But we also tried to focus on the environmental benefits. It is electric, and we can recycle it.”

Because we’re small and electric, we’ve also got a very low cost per km

“There are a lot of small growers that are not being serviced by technology. And there are a lot of barriers to entry. With a unit of this size, we can service a small grower, but also a large grower. If you’ve got 5 to 10 hectares, then you might get one. If you’ve got a 100 hectares, then you can have 10 of these robots. You can run them in a fleet, using a smart phone.

“If you’ve got 500 hectares, you just get more of them. If, for whatever reason, one breaks down, you’re still running. Since it’s so small, we can just about post you another one. Uptime is really important for farmers. It is also safe. Recently a grower told me: ‘if it drove into one of my trees, it would never push it over’. Because we’re small and electric, we’ve also got a very low cost per km.”

_{Text continues below picture}

An earlier version of GOVOR at work in a nursery.

What are the benefits of your autonomous concept?

If you have limitations of labour, this offers a solution. There are a lot of mundane tasks, that are hard work. People would rather do other tasks in horticulture, that are more rewarding and less repetitive. There are vineyards with many kilometres of rows that need to be weed-sprayed under the vines or need to be mowed, for example.

“You need less people, but there’s also an increasing number of people that knows how to use a smart phone and a diminishing number of people that knows how to operate a tractor. As far as training goes, it is much easier with this small unit to get people up and going.”

How easy is the robot to use, and how do you control it?

“The Agovor web portal works from any smartphone or computer to deploy, monitor, and control the robot. There is a bit of planning at the start. You need to give it some instructions, set up the blocks. From there, you turn on the GOVOR from your phone, and attach the attachment. Then you choose the task, for example spraying, and say go. It will drive from the shed to where it has to go, and spray the rows. If there is an issue, it will send a notification to your phone. When is has finished, you can just send it back to the shed.”

_{Text continues below picture}

Richard Beaumont: “If you’ve got 5 to 10 hectares, then you might get one. If you’ve got a 100 hectares, then you can have 10 of these robots. You can run them in a fleet, using a smartphone.”

For what sort of growers and crops is it most suited?

“For any row-based and specialty crops. Horticulture, berries, apples, kiwifruit for example. And we are currently learning about forestry.”

What attachments do you have available?

“We have developed a CDA sprayer with a 50 -litre tank. With that, we can get an eight hour runtime, before we have to refill it. We also have a prototype for an electric mower, and are trying to get an optimal runtime for the market. Canopy spraying is a big one. We’re looking into that.”

There is a lot going on in spot spraying

“We will also be partnering with others, that already have attachments. There is a lot going on in spot spraying. We’ve got a standard hitch on the back, so customers can also develop their own attachment.”

Can it be compared to Burro for certain tasks?

“Yes, that would be an easy trailer to make for a customer.”

What sort of information can users see on their phone or computer about the robot?

The operator can see the percentage of the job that is completed, the speed it is running at, and it has a livestream from the front and rear camera. You can track it on a map, and you can click between the different GOVORS you might have. And there are other metrics, like battery performance.”

_{Text continues below video}

How does the swapping of batteries work?

“You can swap them easily, but most of the time growers just run it, and plug it back in, just like a Tesla. We are working with another company on self-charging.”

GOVOR is commercially available. How is the interest in your technology?

“Yes, we are leasing it at the moment. You don’t have the issue of obsolescence. And it is definitely more affordable than using a big tractor, that would cost 20 NZ dollar (US $12.3) per km. Using a GOVOR only costs 5 NZ dollars (US $3.1) per km. The interest is really good. We’ve only just had our main harvest here in New Zealand and we’ve been quite busy. We will also be going to some events for demos.”

“We have them available in New Zealand, and have also identified Australia, Europe and North America as markets. Mainly because of the high labour costs in those countries and the greater awareness of environmental impact. Australia will be our starting point.”