New Russian agricultural robot is on track to field trials

Siberian Tiger, a new Russian agricultural robot by Agrirobot, is expected to begin field trials in 2021 and may hit the market as soon as in 2024.

The 172 х 172 cm robot has been developed by an independent group of Russian scientists for plant disease control.

Siberian Tiger is designed to navigate fields, monitoring crops and soil conditions, using a set of cameras and sensors. The collected data is passed on to a neural network for further analysis.

One operator to control hundreds of robots

“One robot can cover 1 ha in about 10 minutes, which makes 300 to 900 ha per day,” Grigori Bondar, one of the scientists involved in the project, said. “We plan this robot to be semi-automated, one operator could remotely control hundreds of robots in operation from an office in a city.”

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Siberian Tiger is designed to navigate fields, monitoring crops and soil conditions, using a set of cameras and sensors. The collected data is passed on to a neural network for further analysis.

The new robot is to optimise disease control in crops, which could increase yields by 10% to 30%. According to its developers, Siberian Tiger has some advantages compared to similar technologies currently under development.

“There is a BoniRob project – a multifunctional robot, designed – among other things – to kill weeds. Compared to this robot, our machine is equipped with a hybrid engine unit, plus a flexible suspension, so that it can stay horizontal even on a hill with a 25-degree incline,” Bondar said.

Siberian Tiger also has a back-up system running from a solar panel. The next step is to design a sophisticated neural network.

Collect data sets

“Hardware is nothing without software. We are actively working on this issue, attracting consultants and designers,” commented Nikolay Kuznetzov, who is in charge of neural networks development.

According to Kuznetzov the Agrirobot company targets to collect data sets to educate neural networks so that the robot can identify as many types of crops and diseases as possible.