BT Group Collaborates on the Use of Robotics and IoT to Automate Agriculture

By sUAS News

Telecommunications provider BT Group has delivered a robotics platform and management system as part of the Innovate UK-funded ‘Robot Highways’ project, according to sUAS News. The project is exploring the use of IoT and robotics in smart agriculture to drive automation, increase efficiency, and improve environmental sustainability.

The project aims to illustrate how a fleet of robots with various roles can interact and cooperate to form a robust and highly efficient supply chain operation.

In response to the challenge, BT and partners have demonstrated a vision of the future of soft fruit farming, where robotics, powered exclusively by renewable energy sources, will assist farmers by carrying out essential, energy intensive, physical farm processes. These include picking and packing fruit, as well as treating crops to reduce common pests and diseases.

By bringing together robotics and IoT, the project consortium has shown how key agricultural processes can be optimized through improving forecasting accuracy, increasing farm productivity, reducing farm labor and reducing fruit waste and fungicide use.