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Autonomous mechanical means are performing increasingly complex functions in agriculture, moving and intervening on crops independently. Experimental prototypes and technologies already in production on show these days at the Bari exhibition

On 25 and 26 May, in Cornaredo (MI), the Cascina Baciocca farm hosted the ACRE event, dedicated to robots and highly automated means for agriculture. The event, organised by Davide Facchinetti of the Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences of the University of Milan in collaboration with Matteo Matteucci of the Milan Polytechnic, offered a preview of what agriculture will be like in the near future

In France, the USA and some Eastern European countries they are already at work on farms. But in Italy as well the demand for robots in agriculture is beginning to gain ground in order to increase and improve production, supplementing human labour while reducing environmental impact. The main stumbling block to dissemination still remains safety

The development of autonomous mechanical vehicles has been made possible by the many profound innovations that the components industry has known over the last 30 years. These are the parts that, as in the case of AI, sensors and 4K cameras, form the mind and sensory apparatus of agricultural robots

Automatic milking is an established reality in dairies around the world. The advantages are many, from the almost total reduction of manual work to the possibility of collecting data on individual animals, for more efficient herd management. On the other hand, it must be remembered that the milking robot is a machine that requires specific skills

In zootechnics, in addition to precision feeding, robotic solutions are available to optimize ration control in the feeding aisle. These systems have the advantage of reducing working time and labor costs

Electronic systems are now growing exponentially, and the formidable spread of digital products offers particularly beneficial economies of scale. This has very important effects on agriculture "4.0" and on the application of robotics and artificial intelligence in the agricultural machinery sector. What are the limits within which machines can learn and operate, and how can they test their behaviours, in particular when they have to do with human interaction: this is the issue that the sector's industries are already taking on

Harvesting of many fresh fruit and vegetables is still exclusively carried out by hand to better maintain its organoleptic characteristics and, above all, its storage life. Although somewhat a little slowly, robotics begins to offer interesting alternative solutions

The EGMF, the European Garden Machinery industry Federation, has come up with a standard for the evaluation of robotic lawnmowers, RLM004-1.0/2016. On April 11th, EGMF published a technical document which establishes reference parameters for defining the performance characteristics and comparative...

Lawn mower manufacturers have an ongoing commitment to research and development to bring to the market mowers with increasingly improved performance as regards power, precision and accuracy in cutting. The number of them producing robotic mowers has increased in recent years and the market is continuing to grow. An example is France where the sales of these mowers virtually doubled in 2014

An increasing range of electronic technology and robots are getting to work in animal husbandry, from measuring out food rations to milking and other basic functions in stabling where intelligent systems can now carry out tasks and monitor environmental parameters, especially with a view to improved livestock health.

Large-scale crop growing under glass has major transport, spraying and harvesting requirements and, where spraying in an enclosed space is harmful to a human spray operator, robots are the answer

The new robot lawn mower boasts top performance and safety and was unveiled in Milan coupled with a photo competition on leisure time