The Carbon Robotics LaserWeeder smart implement can autonomously remove unwanted plants from the crop field. | Credit: Carbon Robotics

Carbon Robotics closed $30 million in Series C financing from new lead investor Sozo Ventures along with existing investors Anthos Capital, Fuse Venture Capital, Ignition Partners, Liquid2 and Voyager Capital. The funding will be used to expand sales regions in North America, optimize and scale manufacturing, develop new software and hardware products, and launch into international markets. This latest round of financing brings Carbon Robotics’ overall funding to $67 million.

“Carbon Robotics’ elegant use of AI, computer vision, robotics and lasers is the only solution that enables farmers to reduce their most expensive line item – weed control – without damaging plants or the soil,” said Rob Freelen, managing director of Sozo Ventures. “I am particularly impressed with the team’s fast pace of innovation to bring breakthrough products to market, boosting farmers’ profitability across conventional, organic and no-till practices.”

The LaserWeeder identifies weeds and targets them for elimination. The implement’s 30 high-powered CO2 lasers use thermal energy to destroy the meristem of the weed with millimeter accuracy, without damaging nearby crops or disturbing the soil.

“This financing round further supports our mission to provide cost-effective and efficient precision ag-tech tools to growers,” said Paul Mikesell, CEO and founder of Carbon Robotics. “Traditional weeding methods, including hand weeding and herbicides, are expensive, unreliable and damage soil health. The LaserWeeder uniquely addresses all of these challenges.”

To date, Carbon Robotics’ LaserWeeders have successfully eliminated more than 500 million weeds across 40 different crops. This year, the LaserWeeder will be delivered to farms across 17 U.S. states and three provinces in Canada. Most recently, Carbon Robotics expanded the features of the LaserWeeder with the industry’s first LaserThinning capability, targeting areas where vegetable crops are purposefully overseeded and then thinned for optimal crop spacing, growth and yield.

As part of the Series C financing, Rob Freelen with Sozo Ventures and Erik Benson with Voyager Capital will join the Carbon Robotics board of directors.

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John Deere has acquired SparkAI, a New York-based startup that develops human-in-the-loop technology to help robots resolve edge cases in real-time. John Deere, which has developed autonomous tractors, was a SparkAI customer for a few years prior to the acquisition. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Willy Pell, VP of autonomy and new ventures at Blue River Technology, a company John Deere acquired in 2017 for $305 million, announced the acquisition on LinkedIn. Michael Kohen, founder and CEO of SparkAI, also posted about the acquisition on the social media platform. SparkAI was founded in 2020 and had raised $7.3 million before being scooped up by John Deere.

Kohen was a guest on The Robot Report Podcast in September 2022 and discussed the company’s human-in-the-loop technology at length.

Operating in a harsh environment like a farm with dust, rain and snow can occasionally make it difficult for machine learning models to consistently make confident & safe decisions. Here’s how the technology works with John Deere’s autonomous tractors:

In moments of low confidence, the autonomous tractor automatically calls SparkAI’s service, passing imagery and other metadata via REST API. The objective is to resolve difficult-to-discern details about the scene to support a real-time decision. SparkAI said it does this by combining two key components in real-time:

• 1. Cognitive input from multiple human mission specialists trained for the use case
• 2. Results from its proprietary software-based decision system

SparkAI returns this resolution to the autonomous tractor. The robot combines this resolution with its pre-existing knowledge of the world to decide on a safe and confident action. According to SparkAI, the entire round-trip process takes seconds and happens thousands of times per day, 24/7.

SparkAI’s role in the workflow is not to take over control and remotely pilot the autonomous tractor. SparkAI provides contextual cues that the autonomous tractor is sometimes missing in order to make confident decisions.

“Spark is going to expedite everything we do. We’re going to be able to ship products sooner and at higher quality with less work,” said Pell. “When we automate away the chunks of human intervention, we will do so with great datasets that characterize the problem across many situations and environments. And all the while we will be delivering value to the customers and learning more about our technology and the environment. And then we will apply that cognition to the next area of growth.”

This is the latest in a string of robotics-related moves by John Deere. In May 2022, it acquired numerous patents and other intellectual property from Light, which specializes in depth sensing and camera-based perception for autonomous vehicles. Financial terms of the deal are unknown. Light was founded in 2013 and raised $185.7 million before the acquisition.

In April 2022, John Deere formed a joint venture with GUSS Automation, a Kingsburg, California-based developer of semi-autonomous orchard and vineyard sprayers. Through the joint venture, Deere will help GUSS further collaborate with the Deere sales channel.

In August 2021, John Deere acquired Bear Flag Robotics for $250 million, a Calif.-based developer of autonomous driving technology for tractors. Founded in 2017, Bear Flag Robotics retrofits its autonomy stack onto existing tractors. It uses cameras, LiDAR and radar technology for redundant, 360-degree situational awareness on a farm.

And, of course, John Deere’s quest for autonomy was kicked off by its acquisition of Blue River Technology in 2017 for $305 million.

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US Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy addresses the crowd during the opening session of the World Ag Expo 2023. | Credit: The Robot Report

Speaker McCarthy is a native of nearby Bakersfield and Tulare is in the district that he represents. The speaker along with several other senators and representatives from other ag-heavy states were present on day one of the show for an important “listening session” related to the upcoming farm bill which is up for renewal this spring in the US Congress.

Tevel Aerobotics

The new Tevel Alphabot is a partnership between Tevel Aerobotics and S&S Harvesting. | Credit: The Robot Report

Tevel Aerobotics is the 2021 recipient of an RBR50 innovation award for fruit-collecting drones. Tevel’s major announcement at the 2023 World Ag Expo (WAE) is a new relationship with S&S Metal Fabrication to produce an automated platform harvester to support the Tevel drones as they move down a row.

The new S&S mobile base is a derivative of the existing S&S Alpha-1 platform harvester and is about 8 ft wide and 25 ft long. The vehicle features a soft conveyor belt in the middle of the vehicle to gently move the fruit to storage bins that accumulate and deposit the fruit into larger bins. These bins are then dropped off within the rox behind the autonomous vehicle as it progresses down a row within the orchard. 

Many observers of the initial Tevel fruit-picking demo last year pointed out that the drones were dropping the harvested fruit from too high and that it would likely damage the fruit. Tevel has solved this problem through the implementation of a canvas drop zone that catches the fruit deposited by a drone and then lets the fruit fall a short, repeatable distance to the conveyor.

Agtonomy

Agtonomy launched its new Tele-Farmer solution at World Ag Expo 2023. | Credit: The Robot Report

Agtonomy launched its new Tele-farmer solution at the 2023 WAE show. 

This was the biggest robotic agriculture new product announcement at the show. Agtonomy is a startup headquartered in South San Francisco.

The Tele-Farmer solution is positioned as a farm management software solution BUT the company demonstrated a fleet of what they’re describing as reference tractors automated by their Tele-Farmer software solution.

The solution is primarily targeted at high-value crops and orchard workflows like mowing, spraying, and weeding.

Tele-Farmer features two novel capabilities:

• Trunk Vision is an ai-based vision model designed to track the trunks of trees and navigate accurately through an orchard row.
• An autonomous battery changing feature that can autonomously place a dead battery onto the charger and then pick up a fully charged battery from a nearby charging dock.

Nexus Robotics

The Nexus Robotics weeder employs delta-style robot arms to selectively pull weeds out of the ground, while leaving the crop plants untouched. | Credit: The Robot Report

Canadian robotics company NEXUS Robotics attended the show for the first time. The company has a fully autonomous, unmanned, electric drive platform that features three delta-style robots located underneath the robot chassis to pick weeds from plant rows. Each delta robot arm has a single gripper designed to quickly pluck a weed plant from the soil.

The system uses images from a color camera and artificial intelligence to identify the plants from weeds, and then move the robot’s gripper to the location of the weed while the autonomous platform continues to drive along the row.

Nexus is targeting the lettuce market as the initial application for weeding and thinning during cultivation. The solution is delivered as a robot as a service solution. 

The company plans to have its first vehicles in the field this spring for the weeding and cultivation processes during the growing season.

Farmwise

The new Farmwise Vulcan is an autonomous weeder configured as a smart implement that can be attached to any standard tractor. | Credit: The Robot Report

Farmwise launched the new Vulcan smart implement at the show. Vulcan is completely re-engineered and leverages everything that Farmwise learned from several years of running the Titan, an autonomous weeding solution for clients in the Salinas Valley area of California.

The company plans to continue running its existing Titan-based fleet, but is not planning to expand this service.

The first advantage of the new Vulcan implement is that it is available in a three-row width, which immediately makes it three times faster and more efficient than the Titan. Secondly, Vulcan can be deployed behind any existing manual tractor, which opens up the market for Farmwise. Vulcan could also be deployed behind any of the autonomous tractors currently on the market, matching (or exceeding) the capabilities of the Titan. The result is a win-win for both farmers and Farmwise.

The device uses machine vision and artificial intelligence to identify crop plants from weeds and beneficials, and all of the AI models created with Titan can be leveraged to run Vulcan.

Finally, Vulcan uses hydraulics to actuate the weeding blades whereas Titan used pneumatics to actuate the blades. This provides more speed, precision and stiffness to the blade motion.

Vulcan is simple to operate as users only need to select the crop and row spacing, and then drive down the furrows. Vulcan does the rest. Farmwise technicians remotely monitor the operation and can quickly handle any alerts or errors that might come up during operations.

NOTE: Thomas Palomares, CTO & Co-Founder at FarmWise will present a use case at the upcoming 2023 Robotics Summit and Expo in Boston, MA on May 10-11 2023.

Monarch Tractor

The new Wingspan.ai software from Monarch Tractor is both a fleet manager and a tractor data management application. | Credit: The Robot Report

I have been covering Monarch Tractor since the company emerged from stealth in 2020. At the World Ag Expo last year, the company was featured only at partner booths. However, this year, Monarch Tractor had a booth and demo area that was bigger than John Deere or any of the other “veteran” tractor companies at the show. The company has raised over $80M in the last two years and began shipping its first production units in November of 2022. The company also signed a deal with Foxconn to start manufacturing the tractor in its Lordstown OH manufacturing facility.

So it should be no surprise that the company made such a huge investment in marketing for this event. The company is now making revenue and has a deep backlog of customers ready to buy and deploy the tractors. Every marketing dollar spent can be justified with a potential sale.

At the show, Monarch introduced a new fleet management software package called Wingspan.ai. Wingspan includes a new user interface and a feature set that simplifies the deployment, management, and maintenance of the tractors deployed on a farm. The company fully expects some customers to deploy more than one tractor, so fleet management features are key to controlling the day-to-day operations of the tractors.

Monarch is an open-source data platform and the company plans to make all of the information available about the Monarch tractor operations.

CEO Praveen Penmentsa has a vision where all of this tractor operational information flows upward and is consolidated for the farmer.

Carbon Robotics

Carbon Robotics created an autonomous weeder that uses lasers to zap the weeds and instantly kill them without any dangerous chemicals. In many ways, it’s the ideal solution for managing weeds without disturbing the soil or introducing harmful chemicals that might impact humans, animals, and pollinators.

There were no big announcements from Carbon Robotics this year other than the addition of new crops to the solution. This means that they have new vision identification models for new crops that expand the application for additional crops.

Most notably this year at the show, there was no autonomous version of the Carbon Robotics solution on display. The company is now all in on the smart implement version of its laser-wielding weeder. Both Carbon Robotics and Farmwise have arrived at the same conclusion: single-row autonomous platform cultivation solutions are not as economically viable as a multi-row, smart-implement version of the solution. It’s simple math, when you can cover three times the area in one pass, you can do the work three times faster. This is just the start of the smart-implement market.

The company also introduced an on-tractor power generator for the smart implement that provides onboard power for the unit using the PTO on the tractor.

Farm-NG

Farm-NG provides a variety of configurable components that can be put together to create any number of different style autonomous vehicles for the farm. | Credit: The Robot Report

Farm-NG is an Ag-robotics startup that launched its solutions at this show. The product is an industrial erector set-like platform with open-source software for the development of custom, autonomous farm machines. The Farm-NG product line includes a number of motors, linear actuators, sensors, cameras and a central control unit, all of which are plug-and-play over the CAN bus. It also includes ag-specific attachments such as discs, furrows, blades, tines, a seeding assembly, an integrated compost spreader, and a bunch of other miscellaneous components.

The genius of the system is its modularity and openness. Farmers are tinkerers, and this is the perfect toolkit for any small to medium-sized farming operation. The software included with the onboard controller is designed to be completely programmable through the touchscreen interface. This enables control over the various motors and attachments. However, the system is also completely open, and a programmer can extend the capabilities and write complex, vision or sensor-guided control algorithms. The system also enables secure, remote monitoring and remote teleoperation of the rig through either a WiFi or cellular network.

Bluewhite Robotics

This John Deere tractor has been converted into an autonomous tractor with Bluewhite autonomy package. | Credit: The Robot Report

Bluewhite is an Israeli startup that can automate any existing tractor with the addition of a sensor package and control actuators. The business model for BlueWhite is to work with the existing fleet of tractors that are owned by a farmer and add on the controls that convert the fleet into fully autonomous vehicles, while still preserving the manual drive capabilities of the vehicle.

The company has already converted a number of tractor models from the leading tractor manufacturers. They design custom actuators for steering, throttle, brakes, transmission, etc, that can be retrofitted onto the vehicles. As the company engineers these actuators for a new model, it is building a portfolio of controls that it can leverage for subsequent customers.

The company has a software package that enables remote monitoring and teleoperation of the solution. The software does rely on GPS, RTK or Comms for successful operation. Smart implements are also controllable providing autonomous operations from seed to harvest. 

Bluewhite operates a robot as a service (RaaS) model that enables farmers to operate the equipment locally while Bluewhite monitors the operation continually and handles exceptions and errors to preserve uptime and continuity.

Amos Power

Amos Power launched its new all-electric autonomous tractor. | Credit: The Robot Report

Amos Power is another startup that launched its autonomous tractor at the 2023 WAE. The company is building a completely autonomous, all-electric, tracked tractor. The platform features three separate electric motors, one for each drive train and a separate electrically driven PTO. This enables the PTO to run at a speed and power setting that is different from the drive train of the tractor.

The Amos Power tractor is fully autonomous and does not include a driver’s seat or any way for a farmer to ride in the vehicle. This is different from many of the other competitors and puts Amos Power into the unmanned autonomy segment of the market.

The tractor weighs 2500 kg (6600 lbs) and has a drawbar horsepower of 75-85 hp. The PTO has 34-40 hp. The company is currently taking reservations for its production generation of vehicles.

Guardian Agriculture

Guardian Ag launched its autonomous, unmanned crop-spraying drone. | Credit: The Robot Report

Guardian Agriculture was one of the few aerial unmanned solutions on display at the show. The Guardian SC-1 is a four-prop drone that features 1.5 m (60-inch) propellers and a 76 Liter (20 gal) payload. The vehicle is designed for autonomous aerial spraying operations and is designed to be operated by a single operator who is managing flight operations and the refilling station. The SC-1 would typically fly for 3-4 minutes before emptying its onboard tank and returning to the refill/recharge station. A quick five-minute refill/recharge puts the drone back into the air for continuous operations until all tasks are completed.

The company is currently developing a larger version of the platform that will feature 2 m (80-inch) props and a large capacity tank to extend flight capabilities.

Operators are required to acquire all of the appropriate drone flight and chemical handling certifications before operating the drone.

Beewise

Beewise is innovating the beekeeping industry with a fully autonomous beehive that provides real-time data on bee health and activity. | Credit: The Robot Report

One of the most unique autonomous innovations on display at the show was the Beewise beehome. This is a climate-controlled, solar-powered, remotely monitored beehive with a capacity of up to 24 different hives. The base unit measures 2.5m x 2m x 2m (8 feet x 6.5 feet x 6.5 feet), and weighs less than a ton without the colonies inside.

In addition to monitoring the bee hives and alerting the hive owner to the health of the bees, the unit also features an internal robot that autonomously harvests honey. The robot extracts the individual honeycombs from a hive, gently swiping the bees from the frame during the extraction process. The robot then inserts the frame into an extraction unit that spins the frame at high speed to extract the honey. The frames are then returned to the hive.

The hive operators also received real-time alerts tracking bee movements and other alert conditions.

Vinergy Inc

Vinergy developed an AMR for moving grape boxes from the crop row to the in-field pack-out station so that grape harvesters do not need to leave the row. | Credit: The Robot Report

Vinergy Inc is an experienced machine builder that is expanding it product portfolio to include automation for grape farmers. The company introduced the Gopher IQ autonomous tray mover to support the table grape harvesting process by moving filled boxes of grapes from the in-field rows to a central in-field packing station. This use case keeps the harvesting crew from having to leave their in-row location to deliver the filled boxes to the packing stations, typically a time-wasted operation for the harvesters. Due to the fragility of the crop, table grapes need to be harvested by hand.

The system is provided with a robots-as-a-service (RaaS) business model. The Gopher HQ solution is a manual pack-out station for grape harvesting that provides a mobile packing station structure that can be easily moved anywhere in the field. It includes eight pack out stations, combined with an automated outfeed belt that queues cases of product. The HQ folds down and is designed to trailer up to three Gopher iQ units for transport on the road. The solution is available for deployment during the 2023 harvest season.

The company is also producing the Rhino, a new solution designed for the dairy feeding application. The Rhino is designed to operate in a dairy barn and push the cow feedback within reach of the herd as they feed.

The company also recently secured a grant to work with aerial drone vendor Tevel to provide a ground-based platform to move the battery pack for the harvesting drones, while also providing the structure for gathering fruit. The prototype unit is a much smaller scale than the S&S base unit shown elsewhere at the show, and it was optimized for safely packing stone fruit (peaches, apricots) that are more fragile than apples.

Burro

Burro launched a new autonomous charging station for the Burro AMR. | Credit: The Robot Report

Burro had a number of autonomous units on display at the show. The company is expanding operations with new scouting payload features. CEO Charlie Andersen describes the new security patrol feature as an opportunity for current (and future) Burro operators to extend the usage of their Burro mobile robots after the working day. Unfortunately, farmers are often the target of thieves during the overnight hours, when valuable crops and/or equipment are stolen. By deploying Burros equipped with additional cameras and sensors to patrol remote areas of the farm, farmers can feel more secure that they will be alerted to issues.

The company has also released a new charging station that enables Burros to autonomously recharge the battery without the need for manual plug-in or battery swap. This also supports the security patrol workflow by enabling the vehicles to charge themselves during overnight hours.

Pollination is another task that Burro is pursuing. Burro has started a partnership with Bloomx.ai to deploy a blueberry pollinating payload to the burro and have the vehicle autonomously traverse a field. Pollination for blueberries occurs by shaking the branches and moving the pollen from the male to the female flowers.

Finally, the company is pursuing the solar market including mowing weeds throughout a solar installation, as well as autonomously shuttling solar panels for workers during an install.

Naio Technologies

Naio Technologies demonstrated its complete lineup of autonomous tractors designed for specific crops. | Credit: The Robot Report

Naio Technologies had demo units on display for each of the various autonomous tractors in its portfolio. From the tiny Oz robot to the much larger Orio and Ted platforms. Naio has an established base of users in its native France, and the company is now expanding operations to the USA. The company focuses primarily on weeding and spraying operations in vegetable crops and especially in grapes and vineyards. All of the vehicles in the Naio lineup are unmanned autonomous vehicles and the Orio and Ted platforms carry the implement between the wheel base, which simplifies the safety requirements and the overall driving and control of the vehicle.

GUSS Agriculture

GUSS Agriculture launched a new ground sprayer attachment for the standard and mini GUSS sprayer base units. This attachment turns the GUSS vehicle from an aerial sprayer for orchard trees into a ground spraying machine that can dispense weed killer on weeds on the ground between the orchard trees. This helps with weed management during the growing season and helps to preserve chemical usage by limiting the overspray onto bare ground. The unit is equipped with downward-facing cameras that only spray when it can see the presence of weeds on the ground.

The post Editor’s picks: top robots from World Ag Expo appeared first on The Robot Report.

In this episode of The Robot Report Podcast, Steve and Mike discuss the state of agriculture automation and review all of the new solutions on display at the recent 2023 World Ag Expo, in Tulare CA.

The episode features short interviews for the show with representatives of the following agricultural robotics companies:

32:06 – Agtonomy CEO and cofounder Tim Bucher

44:16 – Farmwise VP of Sales Todd Rinkenberger

54:06 – Monarch Tractor Director of Product Danny Beck

1:04:11 – Carbon Robotics CEO Paul Mikesell

Robotics Summit & Expo (May 10-11) returns to Boston

Links from today’s show:

• Zoox gives first PUBLIC ROAD rides in purpose-built AVs
• A3: Robot sales reach a new high in 2022
• Brightpick announces mobile picking robot Autopicker

If you want to be a guest on an upcoming episode of the podcast, or if you have recommendations for future guests or segment ideas, contact Steve Crowe or Mike Oitzman.

For sponsorship opportunities of The Robot Report Podcast, contact Courtney Nagle for more information. 

The post Robots and automation at World Ag Expo appeared first on The Robot Report.

Monarch Tractor builds builds all-electric, autonomous compact tractors.

On December 1, 2022, the first production units of the Monarch Tractor MK-V rolled off the assembly line, marking a milestone in the growth of the company.

When it first launched publicly in 2020, the Monarch Tractor MK-V changed the agriculture industry with next-generation electric vehicle technology and the promise of a fully autonomous compact tractor form factor that was unique to the industry. The company deployed the first prototype tractors locally at Wente Vineyards in Livermore California. The Livermore region in California is home to a number of grape growers and wine producers, and this is where the company decided to set up its corporate headquarters.

The MK-V tractor is the fourth generation of tractor from Monarch

“This is a momentous day for Monarch Tractor that has been years in the making,” said Praveen Penmetsa, co-founder & CEO, of Monarch Tractor. “Our team has worked tirelessly and relentlessly with a mission to make farming more profitable and sustainable. We’re proud to see our commitment to technological innovation and sustainable solutions culminate in celebrating our first tractor off the production line, which, I might add, is powered by renewable energy.”

Monarch Tractor has secured several strategic partnerships globally including CNH Industrial and V.S.T. Tillers Tractors, and recently signed a contract manufacturing agreement with Hon Hai Technology Group (“Foxconn”,) the world’s largest electronic manufacturer, to build the MK-V and its battery packs at the Foxconn Ohio facility. The first production units for the Constellation Brands contract, however, are coming off the Founder Series production line at its headquarters and manufacturing facility in Livermore, California.

The first production MK-V tractors wait for delivery at the production line in Livermore, CA

The tractor platform immediately turned a lot of heads when it was launched in 2020. While larger form factor tractors by John Deere and others have had ADAS and driver support features for more than a decade, the Monarch Tractor MK-V was the first compact tractor to come to market with an all-electric drive train.

The company decided to go after the compact tractor form factor as this market is one of the largest market segments around the world, serving small to medium size operations in every growing region and crop opportunity.

On top of the all-electric drive train, the MK-V also offers full autonomy with a complete suite of vision cameras and other sensors that enable the tractor to navigate and avoid obstacles during operation. The company continues to upgrade and roll out new software features that enhance the capabilities for self-driving, perception and autonomy.

The tractors use six NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX SOMs (system on modules) that help them safely navigate fields using only cameras. “This is important in agriculture environments because there may be no GPS signal,” said Penmetsa. “It’s also crucial for safety as the Monarch is intended for totally driverless operation.”

The Founder Series MK-V runs two 3D cameras and six standard cameras. With the six Jetson edge AI modules on board, it can run models for multiple farming tasks when paired with different implements. “The NVIDIA Jetson enables the MK-V to run low-latency, real-time AI applications while at the same time conserving energy for longer battery life and extended run time,” said Penmetsa.

Key features of the MK-V include:

• Renewable Technology: The MK-V is electric and emits no pollution. It serves as a tractor, utility vehicle, and powerful electric generator in the field.
• Driver Optional: Monarch combines driver-assist and driver-optional hardware and software. The Monarch MK-V can execute pre-programmed operations without a driver, or an operator can leverage interactive automation features like Shadow mode to follow a worker.
• Unprecedented Safety: The MK-V is full of safety features like rollover and collision prevention, vision-based Power Take Off (PTO) safety, and 360° cameras to keep operations running smoothly and employees safe, day or night.
• Deep Learning & Sensing Suite: The MK-V collects and analyzes crop data every day. It can also process data from current and next-generation implements with sensors and imaging. This information can be used to make changes to the hardware in real-time, estimate long-term yields, figure out where the plant or crop is in its growth cycle, and get other information about its health.
• Smart Device Operation: MK-V users get alerts about the status of their tractors, detailed reports about their operations, and data collection, analysis, and storage for better farm planning.
• Powerful: The Monarch electric drivetrain is capable of providing 40HP (30KW) of continuous power and short-duration peak power up to 75HP (55KW) in a small footprint for multi-purpose usage.

“We are pleased to partner with Monarch Tractor as its first customer, accelerating our deep commitment to sustainability while supporting a business driving future-forward innovation in agriculture technology,” said Robert Hanson, president of Constellation Brands’ Wine & Spirits division. “As we build a leading global premium, fine wine and craft spirits portfolio, comprised of some of the world’s top vineyards including To Kalon (whose organic certification is expected in early 2023), we are focused on protecting and amplifying our resources while producing the highest quality wines and spirits in the world. Being the first to leverage the Founder Series MKV affords us an industry-first opportunity to do so, and we congratulate Monarch on this exciting Launch.”

Monarch Tractor was a 2021 RBR50 honoree for the innovation of an all-electric, autonomous, compact-format tractor. CEO Praveen Penmetsa was a guest on The Mobile Robot Guide Podcast in episode 6.

In California, Monarch Tractor is championing the acceptance of fully autonomous tractors as an automation solution for California farmers, in light of the ban on autonomous tractors by CAL OSHA. The California agriculture market is one of the largest markets for specialty crops in the world, and is important to the success of the MK-V. Labor availability is one of the key market drivers for specialty crops as it requires a lot of manual labor for cultivation and harvesting.

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Verdant Robotics deploys autonomous cultivation solutions. | Credit: Verdant Robotics

Verdant Robotics announced the close of $46.5 million in Series A funding, an investment period that took three rounds over the last three years. The investment will enable the company to scale the production of its advanced agricultural robotic cultivation technology and accelerate go to market programs. With the close of this round, the company has raised a total of $46.5 million to date (source: Crunchbase).

In this round, lead investor Cleveland Avenue was joined by DCVC Bio, Future Ventures, SeaX Ventures and all existing investors, including Autotech Ventures, Cavallo Ventures and AgFunder. This level of investment is a positive sign for the growth and trajectory of ag robotics.

Verdant is an innovator in the smart implement sub-market of agtech. The technology developed and employed by Verdant enables the smart implement to autonomously cultivate, weed and specialty crops.

Vision cameras image the ground underneath the implement, then use artificial intelligence to identify crop plants, beneficials, and weeds. The weeds are targeted for removal while beneficial and crop plants are nurtured and treated as necessary to maximize growth.

Unlike self-driving tractor companies, Verdant is focusing on deploying its solution as a standard implement. It can be attached behind either a manually driving or autonomous tractor, which future-proofs the design and makes it immediately applicable to tens of thousands of acres where no automation is currently in operation.

The solution also serves as a data gathering platform, collecting information about the current state of crops from the cameras used to identify and classify what it sees in the ground.

Robot-as-a-Service requires a large investment to build a fleet

Verdant delivers its solution in a Robots-As-A-Service (RaaS) business model. For customers, RaaS helps to reduce the upfront investment and transfers the costs from a CAPEX decision to an OPEX decision. It also reduces the risk for deploying new technology, as the RaaS vendor doesn’t get paid if the system doesn’t operate as advertised. In many markets, RaaS is a win-win for both the customers and vendor as it increases customer intimacy and closes the loop faster on innovation.

RaaS is a great business model when the customer isn’t expecting to become a robotics expert. Although farmers are often on the cutting edge of technology that helps them do their job faster, better and cheaper. Farmers always balance risk and return as they operate on tight margins, and are always subject to the climate from year to year.

For the vendor, however, it can mean a longer runway of investment with larger and more funding rounds as the vendor builds out its operational fleet. The vendor keeps the fleet on its books and continues to upgrade and maintain the fleet throughout its working lifetime.

“Increasingly, consumers are demanding food that meets the trifecta of good for me, for my community and for the planet,” said Don Thompson, Founder and CEO of Cleveland Avenue, LLC. “Verdant offers next-level precision that growers – and our global food supply – need to meet these demands, not only in the next 20 years but in the next five.”

Since the company’s inception, Verdant’s mission has been to work side-by-side with farmers to solve their greatest future challenge, which is a shortage of farm labor. All the while, Verdant has been working to ensure that its robotic solution enables more growers to access regenerative and precision practices that support soil health, water conservation, carbon sequestration and nutrient-dense crops.

The combination of Verdant’s automation, deep learning, machine vision and sub-millimeter accuracy, which was designed by a team of world-class roboticists, has attracted the attention of the entire industry due to its capacity to solve multiple issues that are currently confronting the agricultural sector.

“Verdant’s ultra-precision spraying platform is here today — adding new value while doing more with less. Thanks to the ongoing support from our investors, growers can thrive as we deploy this transformative technology together,” said Gabe Sibley, PhD, co-founder and CEO of Verdant Robotics. “At Verdant, we believe that an outsized opportunity requires an oversized effort that only robotics can deliver for agriculture.”

“Autonomous vehicles and dancing robots may get headlines, but there really is no more impactful area for robotics, automation, and machine learning to be applied than agriculture. Growing abundant foods in sustainable ways is our generation’s biggest challenge and the founding principle behind Verdant Robotics,” said Sibley.

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Iron Ox’s autonomous mobile robot Grover. | Source: Iron Ox

There are reports of significant layoffs at Iron Ox, an agriculture technology company that uses robotics to customize care for plants. Many now-former employees have posted on social media about the layoffs.

While it’s unclear exactly how many employees have been laid off, numerous posts indicate Iron Ox let go of roughly half of its employees. Iron Ox also laid off a smaller number of employees a few months ago, according to other posts from former employees.

Based in Silicon Valley, Iron Ox is an agriculture technology startup with deep expertise in plant science, robotics and artificial intelligence (AI). The company uses two robots in its growing process.

The first is Grover, a mobile robot that autonomously navigates through Iron Ox’s greenhouses. Grover slides under the company’s plant-growing modules, picks them up and takes them wherever they need to be. This could include moving the modules to get new plants and give existing plants more sunlight, nutrition and water.

Iron Ox’s other robot, Max, delivers and monitors each module’s water, nutrient, mix and pH levels. Max works with Grover to optimize plant yield, expand growth cycles and maximize crop quality. The company also uses robotic arms to tend to the plants. 

Iron Ox’s last funding round closed in September 2021 and brought the company’s total funding to $98 million.

Iron Ox isn’t the only company feeling financial pressure lately. Fifth Season, another agricultural technology company, closed down last week, according to reporting from the Pittsburgh Business Times. Fifth Season used robotics to grow leafy greens in vertical farms. The greens would be distributed in salad kits sold at grocery stores. The company employed around 100 workers.

Also last week, autonomous driving company Argo AI shut down. Some of Argo AI’s around 2,000 employees would either be receiving offers from Ford or Volkswagen, which were the two primary financial backers of Argo AI.

The Robot Reportreached out to Iron Ox for comment on the layoffs but did not hear back at press time.

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The IP-54-rated aircraft features a 31-minute flight time, radar-based front collision avoidance, and backpack portability, so professional UAV pilots can fly safely when and where the mission demands. | Credit: FLIR

Teledyne FLIR, part of Teledyne Technologies Incorporated, launched SIRAS, a professional drone that includes a quick-connect dual radiometric thermal and visible camera payload. Engineered for data security, performance, and affordability, SIRAS is optimized for industrial and utility inspection, public safety, firefighting, and search and rescue missions.

Teledyne acquired FLIR for $8 billion in a major merger, early in 2021. Since the acquisition, the new division has continued to engineer new products and expand its portfolio of drone-specific options.

“Designed to provide pilots with the flexibility to get the job done, SIRAS delivers a geofence-free flight experience with thermal and visible imaging capabilities at $9,695 USD,” said, Mike Walters, vice president of product management, Teledyne FLIR. “SIRAS is the only enterprise drone to currently incorporate the patented MSX technology, which overlays the edge detail from the visible camera on the thermal image to provide critical information in real-time.”

The IP-54-rated aircraft features a 31-minute flight time, radar-based front collision avoidance, and backpack portability, so professional UAV pilots can fly safely when and where the mission demands. The included Vue TV128 payload features a quick-connect gimbal, which provides imagery compatible with FLIR Thermal Studio and leading third-party photogrammetry applications. The 16MP visible camera can zoom 128x to pinpoint details. The integrated 640×512 pixel, radiometric Boson provides best-in-class thermal imagery, 5x digital zoom, and temperature measurement of every pixel in the scene.

With a startup time of one minute, pilots can get eyes on the scene quickly and maintain control via a dual-band radio (2.4/5.8 GHz) connection, while hot-swappable batteries ensure efficient operation. To improve data security, SIRAS stores imagery on an onboard SD card and does not include cloud connection capability. Furthermore, pilots are not required to create an online profile, increasing ease of use and reducing potential unintended online data access.

The SIRAS aircraft was designed in collaboration with and is manufactured by Coretronic Intelligent Robotics Corporation (CIRC) in Taiwan, a subsidiary of Coretronic Group. Final payload integration and quality control are completed in the USA.

SIRAS will begin shipping in the fourth quarter of 2022 in the US. SIRAS is dual use and classified under US Department of Commerce jurisdiction as EAR 6A003.b.4.a.

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Welcome to Episode 93 of The Robot Report Podcast, which brings conversations with robotics innovators straight to you. Join us each week for discussions with leading roboticists, innovative robotics companies and other key members of the robotics community.

Co-hosts Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman are joined by Dan Kara to preview and discuss the upcoming RoboBusiness and the Field Robotics Engineering Forum. The events take place October 19-20, 2022 at the Santa Clara Convention Center. To register, go to robobusiness.com

We’ve got an exciting lineup of keynotes and content planned for both events, but other event highlights include:

• Pitchfire startup competition
• Networking events
• Startup bootcamp
• Career fair (Sponsored by MassRobotics)

Links from today’s show:

• Career Fair at RoboBusiness 2022
• To register for ROBOBusiness: robobusiness.com
• To see the agenda for the Field Robotics Engineer Forum

If you would like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of the podcast, or if you have recommendations for future guests or segment ideas, contact Steve Crowe or Mike Oitzman.

For sponsorship opportunities of The Robot Report Podcast, contact Courtney Nagle for more information.

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Welcome to Episode 92 of The Robot Report Podcast, which brings conversations with robotics innovators straight to you. Join us each week for discussions with leading roboticists, innovative robotics companies and other key members of the robotics community.

Kishore Boyalakuntla, VP of Products, Berkshire Grey, joins this week’s show. Kishore talks to Mike about product management best practices and how important the voice of the customer is in making product decisions and developing and productizing automation solutions. If you are a product leader in the robotics market, you’ll appreciate what it takes to commercialize a robotic solution and maintain a viable product roadmap.

The podcast also discusses the top stories of the week, including a pending FTC investigation into the pending acquisition of iRobot by Amazon.

Links from today’s show:

• Career Faire at RoboBusiness 2022
• Matternet gets type certification to fly drone delivery missions over houses and crowds
• FTC investigation into Amazon acquisition of iRobot
• Jim Rock steps down as CEO of Seegrid

If you would like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of the podcast, or if you have recommendations for future guests or segment ideas, contact Steve Crowe or Mike Oitzman.

For sponsorship opportunities of The Robot Report Podcast, contact Courtney Nagle for more information.

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Welcome to Episode 91 of The Robot Report Podcast, which brings conversations with robotics innovators straight to you. Join us each week for discussions with leading roboticists, innovative robotics companies and other key members of the robotics community.

Michael Kohen, founder and CEO of Spark AI, joins this week’s show. Michael discusses situations in which AI and machine learning still come up short for robotics systems and how a human-in-the-loop system can help solve edge cases in real-time. He shares specific real-world examples, including details about Spark AI’s partnership with John Deere and its autonomous tractors.

The podcast also discusses the top stories of the week, including the US government imposing restrictions on AMD and NVIDIA selling certain AI chipsets to China. We break down what this could mean for robotics.

Links from today’s show:

• How AI chipset bans could impact Chinese robotics companies
• Waymo starts fully driverless robotaxi rides in downtown Phoenix
• Robot sales hit record high for 3rd straight quarter

If you would like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of the podcast, or if you have recommendations for future guests or segment ideas, contact Steve Crowe or Mike Oitzman.

For sponsorship opportunities of The Robot Report Podcast, contact Courtney Nagle for more information.

The post AI: chipset bans and keeping humans in the loop appeared first on The Robot Report.

Sprout is an autonomous robot that navigates between rows to harvest asparagus. | Source: Muddy Machines

Muddy Machines announced earlier this month that it brought in over $1.8 million, £1.5 million, for its Sprout harvesting robot. 

Sprout is a lightweight, battery-powered autonomous robot that can precisely harvest asparagus for up to 16 hours a day. Asparagus is a very labor-intensive crop to harvest, as workers must harvest daily throughout the 12-week season. 

The robot is able to autonomously drive into fields, detect and delicately pick asparagus spears according to a grower’s specifications. The robot’s artificial intelligence and deep-learning technology help it to avoid immature spears and weeds. It’s even able to navigate tight clusters of asparagus or harvest vegetables that are growing sideways. 

“Raising money for AgTech and hardware businesses is a challenge at the best of times. We are extremely proud to have secured this funding in the current investment climate,” Florian Richter, CEO and co-founder of Muddy Machines, said. “We are now focused on creating a meaningful amount of harvest capacity for our customers.”

Muddy Machines plans to use the latest round of funding to strengthen its engineering team and build its capacity to expand its fleet of Sprout robots for more widespread adoption. The company plans to specifically focus on building its fleet for the 2023 asparagus harvesting season to generate initial revenue, develop different harvesting capabilities and plan production for the next generation of Sprout robots. 

Regenerate Ventures, an early-stage investor in agriculture technology companies that help farmers produce food with a smaller environmental impact, led the funding round. Ponderosa Ventures, Jude Gomilla, Thrive/SVG Ventures and Science Angel Syndicate also participated in the round, among others. 

“We were impressed by Muddy Machine’s vision and the speed of technical development,” Paul Rous, MD at Regenerate Ventures, said. “This was a company founded in the midst of the first lockdown. Within two years they had a robot asparagus harvester built and commercially tested.”

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Monarch Tractor is an all-electric autonomous compact tractor, ideal for general agriculture use. | Source: Monarch Tractor

Monarch Tractor signed a contract manufacturing agreement with Foxconn to produce the Monarch MK-V electric tractor and battery packs at the Foxconn Ohio manufacturing facility.

Monarch co-founder and CEO Praveen Penmetsa worked in the automotive market early in his career, and is no stranger to the automotive supply chain in the midwest. The Foxconn Ohio facility is located near Lordstown in eastern Ohio and boasts approximately 6.2 million square foot campus of scalable production space. The facility produced General Motors vehicles for 50 years before selling the property to Lordstown Motors in 2019. Other notable clients of Foxconn at the facility include Apple and the electric truck company Lordstown Motors. 

FoxConn purchased the Lordstown manufacturing site in May 2022. | Credit: Business Journal

Full-scale production of Monarch Tractor’s MK-V Series is scheduled to begin in the Lordstown facility in Q1 2023. This will follow production of Monarch’s Founder Series in Q4 of 2022 at Monarch Tractor’s Livermore, California, manufacturing facility.

“Leveraging Foxconn’s manufacturing strengths, world-wide network of industry leaders and supply partners, and our new partnership with Monarch Tractor, Foxconn is positioned and eager to contribute to the ongoing and future success of Monarch Tractor, its products and its customers,” said Young Liu, chairman of Hon Hai Technology Group. “This partnership reflects Foxconn’s growing center of gravity for autonomous electric vehicle production and the potential that can emerge from forward-thinking collaborations.”

In May 2022, Foxconn assumed manufacturing operations at its Ohio facility after completing an Asset Purchase Agreement with Lordstown Motors Corp. The agreement with Monarch Tractor is the first contract manufacturing engagement by Foxconn following the closing of the APA. It embodies the Foxconn vision to expand its contract manufacturing in the EV market. The agreement also continues the transformation of Foxconn capabilities in the Mahoning Valley.

“Creating the industry’s most advanced tractor demands a manufacturing partner with the experience to quickly scale and execute with precision,” said Penmetsa. “Foxconn is an EMS leader whose manufacturing and solutions are world-renowned. We are proud to partner with Foxconn and work together to transform the future of farming.”

The post Foxconn to build Monarch tractor in Ohio appeared first on The Robot Report.

Lyro Robotics’ produce packing robot takes in produce from a conveyor belt and uses a variety of end-effectors to pick and pack the produce. | Source: Lyro Robotics

Lyro Robotics, an Australian company that creates a robotic system that scans and packs produce, raised $1.5 million in a pre-Series A round of funding, according to reporting from InnovationAus. 

With the latest round of funding, the company plans to deliver around 20 autonomous robotic packers to agriculture clients. Its robotic packing solution aims to save produce by packing it more quickly than manual packers and help alleviate labor shortages.

Lyro Robotics designs and builds the entire technology stack for its robotic packers. The system starts with a conveyor belt that feeds items into Lyro’s box-shaped machine. Cameras inside the box scan the produce to determine what the item is. 

The robot then decides how to grip the produce, and which grippers to use to pick and pack the produce. The robot can be retrofitted into existing packing lines, and is available as a Robot-as-a-Service (RaaS), in which customers pay based on how much produce is packed.

According to the company, its robot can successfully handle citrus fruits, chilis, rockmelons, avocados, nectarines, punnets of packed fruits like cherry tomatoes and berries, sweet potatoes and capsicum. The robot is quick to deploy, and because of its RaaS model, requires little capital cost up front for customers. 

Artesian/Boab AI, AgFunder and Toyo Kanetsu, an existing investor in Lyro Robotics, participated in the funding round. In April, Lyro Robotics received a $100,000 grant as part of the Australian government’s Ignite Ideas program. 

While the robot is being aimed at the agriculture industry, it’s also able to do similar work for manufacturing and recycling clients. 

The company was founded in 2019 by Juxi Leiner, Nicole Robinson and Norton Kelly-Boxall. The team won an Amazon Robotics Challenge in 2017 for a robot that could identify and pick up warehouse items.

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AgLaunch’s mission is to help farmers participate in the development of innovative agriculture automation solutions. | Credit: AgLaunch

AgLaunch is a Memphis based non-profit, agtech accelerator with a mission to help farmers gain access to agriculture automation solutions while enhancing the productivity of the “mid-South” agricultural region of the United States. AgLaunch has a unique business model, with support coming from the public side from the EDA, USDA and SBA, as well as some TN state funding.

AgLaunch uses a committee of individual, commercial farmers to select technologies that will benefit farmers. Technology companies have to make their case to the farmer selection committee before being accepted into a new cohort with the program.

More labor is needed to pivot to specialty crops

Looking to the future, AgLaunch recognizes the need to produce more specialty crops (i.e. crops other than wheat, corn and other row-crops) in the mid-south, a region that has the arable land and water resources to pivot to meet the changing needs of the market. What the region is lacking, however, is the additional labor that is necessary to grow specialty crops.

Crops like wheat, corn and soybeans can be sown, cultivated and harvested with a small staff of farm hands. The mid-South region has evolved to focus on row-crops over the last 100 years. In order to make a pivot to growing specialty crops, more automation will be required.

It is in this market climate that AgLaunch was born, with the full support of the regional governments and farming community.

AgLaunch365 is a unique partnership and accelerator program

For young agricultural automation startups, AgLaunch is offering a unique opportunity to accelerate into the market. The ideal target company will have reached the prototype stage, although that’s not a requirement.

Joining the program will allow companies direct access to their target market. The farmers who are involved are all innovators and understand both the risks and benefits of participating. As stakeholders, the farmers offer prototype testing and feedback to the design and operation of new solutions, as well as providing the land, crops and resources needed for prototype testing.

The AgLaunch365 Accelerator kicks off in January 2023 and lasts the entire growing season. It is a three phase program:

Phase I

Challenge Week – Participants receive support services to refine their startup’s value proposition and prepare to pitch to farmers and agricultural investors to earn a seat in the AgLaunch365 Accelerator.

Phase II

Accelerator – A panel of farmers and ag investors choose up to six startups to participate in this phase. Startups will construct in-depth farm trial plans while fine-tuning their business model.

Phase III

Farm Trials – Phase III is dedicated to implementing farm trial plans with the AgLaunch Farmer Network. Participating startups typically work directly with farmers for up to three iterations of their technology and have exclusive access to farmer input and feedback. AgLaunch has many cost-share opportunities to offset some of the expenses of farm trials.

The schedule

The 2022-2023 current schedule includes:

• AgLaunch365 Applications close July 18
• Selected teams notified by early September
• Phase I Challenge weeks held in Memphis in October
• Phase II Accelerator held in hybrid format mid-January – February
• Phase III Farm Trials begin March and continue for up to two years

NOTE: the deadline to submit an application is July 18, 2022, for more information, go to the AgLaunch website.

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