XAG R150 robots on their way to growers in Australia

The XAG R150 is manufactured in China and assembled locally. The company has already produced around 1000 of these UGV’s. Worldwide about 300 to 400 have been shipped. Mr Dimec expects to sell 15 to 20 R150 machines in the next quarter in Australia. “Hopefully that will ramp up exponentially from there”, he says.

Growing interest

“The interest in the unit for application use is very high”, Mr Dimec says. “Across the country. Not just in New South Wales. We had a few sales in Queensland and in Western Australia and South Australia the interest is also picking up.”

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The robotic platform is suitable for spraying, spreading, mowing and transportation. It has a load capacity of 150 kilos and can tow a total of 1000 kilos. “For a spreading operation, you could use a trailer to carry more seeds”, Mr Dimec says. The electric dual battery system can run for 4 hours. Charging takes 15 minutes per battery.

Carries up to 100 litres

The XAG comes standard with a turbine jet spraying system, that is able to spray droplets of 60 to 200 microns, and carries up to 100 litres. It can cover a width of 12 metres and an area of 5 hectares per hour. It has a speed of 1.2 metre per second. Farmers can also add third-party attachments, for example for slashing over tougher terrain or row seeding.

Growers have a fully automated option to operate the platform. “Basically, you just send it off to do a grid pattern”. Mr Dimec points out. “Or you can set out your fields or your runs, using aerial maps. But you also have the option to manually use the remote control to let it do runs.”

Positive feedback

XAG R150 has received positive feedback in Australia about the robotic platform. “There are a few similar units in the market, but people haven’t seen anything as automated as this system”, Mr Dimec says. “And it’s easy to use and very adaptable for third party applications.”

The XAG R150 including the spraying module sells in Australia for around AUS 33,000 (US 24,000).