Robovator

DESCRIPTION

Robovator is an Agricultural-Robots from F. Poulsen Engineering. It is built for Agriculture. Key figures: 700 kg.

The Robovator is F. Poulsen Engineering's vision-based robotic hoeing machine for controlling weeds inside the crop row, a tractor-mounted implement that works in organic and conventional vegetable and row crops without herbicides. A special plant-detection camera sits above each row on its own parallelogram and continuously watches the passing plants; the hoeing tool normally stays in the row, and when a crop plant arrives the computer signals the hydraulic actuator to swing the tool out at the right moment and back in once the plant has passed. Where plants are missing, the tool simply stays in the row. Automatic lateral control with side shift keeps the machine centred on the rows even if the tractor drifts off track. It is hydraulically operated, draws only about 1 hp per row from the tractor PTO, weighs about 700 kg and works at 2 to 8 km/h, also in darkness. Row spacing adjusts from 25 to 75 cm, and machines are built in different widths, from 5-row units working in onions, lettuce and chives in Denmark and the Netherlands to a 31-row machine in German lettuce. It can be run from a smartphone, a laptop or its own display, ships with software for transplanted vegetables and can be updated with new software.

FEATURES