robotics Archives | Country Guide

Digital supercluster backs precision fungicide development

Project aims at wheat leaf rust, reducing pesticide load

By Dave Bedard March 5, 2020

Reading Time: 3 minutes A West Coast ag tech company in the crop pest control business is setting its sights on wheat leaf rust, with support from one of Canada’s five research superclusters — but not the cluster you might expect. Out of the five federally-supported superclusters launched in early 2018, Protein Industries Canada has been most closely linked […] Read more

Staff demonstrate how the DOT autonomous power platform connects to an implement, using the Pattison Connect sprayer.

Equipment, Machinery

Autonomous farm machinery drives out into the desert

DOT Technology Corp. holds an impressive demo day in Arizona

By Scott Garvey August 15, 2019

Reading Time: 5 minutes It’s obvious that Norbert Beaujot invests a lot of time thinking about the coming transformation of ag machinery, and about how to explain it to the farmers who are going to be at the very centre of the action. Beaujot is founder of DOT Technology Corp. and the inventor of the DOT autonomous power platform, […] Read more

Staff prepares an autonomous DOT for a public demonstration during Canada’s Farm Progress Show in Regina in June.

Guide Business, Machinery

Self-driving versus the lawyers

Fully autonomous farm vehicles are already here, but setting the rules for their use won’t be simple

By Scott Garvey October 24, 2018

Reading Time: 5 minutes The Senate of Canada had a pretty simple question when it held the hearings that led to is report, “Driving Change, Technology and the Future of the Automated Vehicle.” It’s a question farmers are asking too. When is all this technology going to arrive? You couldn’t exactly say the experts answered it with precision. Their […] Read more

Last November, Transport Canada presented draft changes to regulations governing UAVs.

Crops, Equipment

UAV regs changing – for the better

Transport Canada looks to streamline and standardize the rules for drone use

By Ralph Pearce March 26, 2018

Reading Time: 5 minutes The growth in the functionality of unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) over much of the past decade has been steady. From the early days when advisers, dealers, agronomists and laboratories purchased and used the units to derive valuable insights into crop performance to more recent sales of much simpler designs for hobby uses, UAVs have made […] Read more

A cutaway view of a Xaver robot shows it is built on a modular design, and in the future it could potentially be repurposed to do jobs other than seeding corn.

Machinery, Machinery Guide

‘Xaver’-ing success

AGCO’s MARS project lands a new name ahead of its market release

By Scott Garvey February 1, 2018

Reading Time: 3 minutes Several months ago Country Guide reported on the field robot project called MARS, which is an acronym for Mobile Agricultural Robot Swarms. It began as a joint research project between the European Commission and AGCO’s Fendt brand. At the Agritechnica machinery show in Hanover, Germany, in November, AGCO revealed the project has moved beyond the […] Read more

The mobile robot unit (with the tower in the background) is capable of taking phenotypic measurements of a corn plant at three different levels, without damaging the plant.

Corn, Crops

Probing drought stress in corn

The potential for measuring, modelling and helping improve production is astounding

By Ralph Pearce September 12, 2017

Reading Time: 6 minutes The design and creation of a new robotic device for phenotyping plants is a double-sided boon to agriculture. On one hand, it is indicative of the enormous potential of the autonomous systems now in development for farm applications. On the other, it’s a huge leap forward for researchers and plant breeders and their ability to […] Read more

Chris Neeser used a fixed-wing UAV and captured images three times during the season in two fields each of barley, canola, field peas, seed alfalfa, potatoes and spring wheat.

Crops, Machinery

UAVs and crop scouting. Are they worth it?

Seven organizations supported a two-year study on whether drones can provide practical benefits to farmers

By Clare Stanfield August 23, 2017

Reading Time: 5 minutes When Chris Neeser began to design a research project on the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in crop scouting, he wondered if anyone would be willing to fund it. “This was different from a typical research project,” says Neeser, a research scientist with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry’s Crop Diversification Centre, South, in Brooks. “There […] Read more

SeedMaster’s Norbert Beaujot sees DOT technology as one solution to a shortage of skilled operators.

Machinery

Not just a driverless tractor, but no tractor at all

A global launch at Ag in Motion could change the way you farm

By Laura Rance June 28, 2017

Reading Time: 4 minutes While farmers have been waiting impatiently for equipment designers to commercialize the driverless tractor, Prairie inventor and entrepreneur Norbert Beaujot has found a way to ditch the tractor altogether. And he’s rolling it out for the first time in July 18 to 20 at Ag in Motion (AIM), Western Canada’s outdoor farm show now in […] Read more

The MARS research project uses swarms of small autonomous robots to seed fields.

Machinery, Machinery Guide

Heading to MARS

This new ag robot concept uses swarms of small machines

By Scott Garvey April 6, 2017

Reading Time: 2 minutes A new research project underway in Europe may give farmers a reason to think swarms are a good thing. Far from swarms of locusts or other troublesome pests, the MARS (Mobile Agricultural Robot Swarms) project is working on creating swarms of small, autonomous robots that can seed farm fields on their own. The MARS project […] Read more

The Harper Adams working group: (l to r) research assistant Martin Abell, robotics researcher Jonathan Gill and Kit Franklin, ag engineering and project manager.

Machinery

Thinking small with a big idea

Britain’s “Hands Free Hectare” project is developing the model that you may need to build tomorrow’s farm on

By Scott Garvey February 16, 2017

Reading Time: 6 minutes As a kid, I can vividly remember one particular occasion sitting on the steps in my grandparents’ old farmhouse in the late 1960s looking at an issue of Country Guide. One image from its pages still sticks in my memory. It was an advertisement showing Massey-Ferguson’s newest line of tractors. Why did that mental image […] Read more

G4 swine flu virus not new, China says

Canola futures testing chart resistance

Solid grain exports continue through Thunder Bay

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