Leo Steenpoorte guides his Oz440 to a plot of kale. The little cart is a self-propelled robot that acts like a workhorse.
Naïo Growing kale is not Mr Steenpoorte’s principal concern. Rather, it is cultivating seed for a range of (vegetable) improvement companies. This is done in glasshouses with dozens of crops, often with a wide range of growing in- structions. However, seed companies are not keen on the use of chemical herbicides for any of these varieties. That only leaves mechanical weeding as an option, which until this year took the form of repetitive manual labour using the long hoe and tools such as a wheel hoe. Needing an easier alternative for that manual weeding, and for other work, Mr Steenpoorte began looking for an electric walking tractor last year. The dealer returned two weeks later with a quote for a diesel tractor, “because electric doesn’t exist.” Mr Steenpoorte began his own search, and it was over the internet that he came across French company Naïo. But an electric robot is quite different to a tractor that you operate yourself. At that time, there was also no im- porters or agents in the Netherlands, but that changed in spring of this year, when Reesink
Agri in Apeldoorn began representing the French company’s Naïo range.
Cameras and a laser The cultivation system and the robot need to be coordinated, however. The device is one metre in length and has an external width of 45cm. Guide plates on the side, as on Mr Steenpoorte’s model, make it slightly wider. Some steering room is also necessary, and that requires a minimum distance of about 65cm between rows. At the end of the pro- cess, the robot needs to have enough room to turn around without obstacles. The ground clearance is 7cm. The robot orientates itself between the plant rows using two cameras or a laser beam. For both systems to work, the plants need to be around 10cm high. The camera system is the most accurate one, but its effective function- ing is conditional on the crop being green. Red is understood as ‘end of the pass, I have to turn around’, which is why the end of a process is al- ways marked with a red stick. The camera sys- tem is therefore unsuitable for use among
red-pigmented crops such as beetroot, where the laser is the better option. The laser also allows the Oz robots to work at night. If there are no crops, or when plants are at an early growth stage, the robot must be controlled remotely using the joystick. There is no GPS available for the Oz (yet). The Oz’s ro- bot settings are entered using the device’s dis- play. The control software needs to know the
The device is one metre in length and has an external width of 45cm. Including some necessary steering room it requires about 65cm between rows.
▶ FUTURE FARMING | 1 November 2018 25
PHOTO: JOOST STALLEN
PHOTO: JOOST STALLEN
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