Málaga, Spain, 24-25 September 2020

The VineScout third prototype VS-3 was presented to the public for the first time at the third edition of the Smart Agrifood Summit, held in Málaga, Spain, on 24 and 25 September, 2020. The robot was nominated for the Agrifood Summit Innovation Awards, so we were allowed to show VineScout in the demo area. Project flyers were distributed among the onsite visitors, mainly to the potential investors that attended this international event, which was half onsite half online.

Quinta do Ataíde, Portugal, 6-8 August 2020

During three hot days in August, VineScout team carried out multiple tests and maps with the new robot VS-3, which was evaluated for the first time in real conditions. Once navigation adjustments for the new steering system were set, the robot was able to cover the requested vineyard rows to make the crop maps. In particular, the team split in two to register the robot-generated maps and their ground-truth evaluation with manually-operated pressure chambers. After three intense days when temperature rised over 40 ºC, field testing and mapping was satisfactory, obtaining maps in different moments of the day and even at night. The tests also showed that new features and components, such as the steering system, time-of-flight sensor, and batteries, resulted in better performance.

UPV, Valencia (Spain), 13 July 2020

The VineScout team has been pushing forward to build the third robot prototype VS-3, in spite of the severe difficulties faced up during April, May, and June 2020 due to the restrictions enforced by the epidemic COVID-19. Without access to the lab until June, the team followed the reception of components from home and software was written by UDLR and UPV teams locally, while the robot fiberglass body was being crafted and assembled in a manufacturer’s workshop near Valencia (Spain). After June, sensors, mechanical parts, and software are being integrated in a race against the clock to meet our compromise for field testing in Portugal this summer. SYM team has been preparing the vineyards of Quinta de Ataíde over the epidemic too. Gathering field data for the last season of the project is critical for its successful closing.

Keep tuned for the upcoming field results!

Paris (France), 25 – 26 February 2020

The 2020 Annual Meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Tractor Codes took place in Paris on 25 and 26 February 2020. The slogan for this year’s meeting was Agricultural Robots: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities. The VineScout robot was exhibited in the main hall of the OECD Conference Center from 23 to 27 February, and the VineScout project was also presented by the coordinator to meeting participants representing OECD countries and key partners of this organization. Given that the OECD may develop a potential regulatory framework for agricultural robotics and digitalization, it was a privilege to display the VS-II platform at this annual meeting.

Labège (Toulouse, France), 10 – 11 December 2019

The VineScout prototype VS-2 was presented to the robotics community in the third edition of the international tradeshow FIRA2019 (Forum International de la Robotique Agricole). VineScout had its own booth in the main exhibition area, and the robot was sharing stage with other two robots. The event was centered on farm robots and related autonomous equipment. The coordinator of the project, Francisco Rovira Más, gave a talk presenting the project, which was then uploaded by FIRA organization to YouTube (link).