Fieldwork Robotics Ltd., (“Fieldwork”), has announced a collaboration agreement with Burro, a manufacturer of autonomous and collaborative mobile robot platforms.
Raspberry growers are particularly impacted by the significant and growing labour crisis affecting the agricultural sector. As cost of labour grows driven by minimum wage increases and availability of labour remains pressured, growers are looking towards innovation to mitigate against labour cost headwinds and against the inevitable greater challenge of seasonal worker availability in the future.
However, even when growers are keen to integrate robotics into their harvesting practice to try and abate increasing costs, they face problems with initial cost of equipment and lack of compatibility between different technologies.
Interoperability between different kinds of technology is an essential step in ensuring farmers and growers can integrate robotics into their operations in a way that is efficient and cost effective for them.
The working partnership has produced a base agnostic payload that can run on multiple bases, including Burro’s, providing farmers with an affordable, efficient and interoperable solution to their harvesting needs. The payload of the Fieldworker 1 seamlessly integrates with other autonomous robots, and this interoperability has been developed and demonstrated in partnership with Burro. Other compatible brands include OxDrive, specialists in the design and manufacture of robust, integrated, electric drives.
Interoperability of technology is a huge advantage to growers and will afford Fieldwork’s customers greater flexibility and lower operating costs.
David Fulton, Fieldwork Robotics CEO commented:
“Burro is the perfect partner for Fieldwork as we continue to develop our product offering. The team’s expertise in autonomous agricultural robots has been an invaluable addition as we continue to develop. This collaboration is a significant milestone for us, and we look forward to delivering an enhanced service to our customers.”
