INTERVIEW ▶▶▶ Ole Green
Demystifying robots for use by everyday farmers
CEO of Danish robotics company AgroIntelli and Professor at Aarhus University, Ole Green, feels that the single furrow horse plough still is one of the greatest agricultural machines ever invented. He explains why.
BY RENÉ KOERHUIS
Future Farming had the chance to talk to Ole Green about his mission to demystify robots for use by everyday farmers.
Why are former inventions that important to you? First of all because I don’t want us to reinvent concepts and solu- tions that were already invented before. That’s also why we take our international AgroIntelli crew to an agricultural museum twice a year, because I don’t want them to ‘reinvent the wheel’. And secondly because the single furrow horse plough meant great progress in mechanisation and it did not compact nor erode the soil. The operators were able to feel, see and smell the soil and evaluate the site specific performed tillage as they were walking just behind the implement. Something that is very dif- ficult with modern day equipment as the operator is typically sitting in an air-conditioned suspended cabin in the front of the implement.
So how does the Robotti robot sense? Robotti is designed to be deployed with known standard im- plements that are upgraded with sensing systems that replace the skilled farmers ability to evaluate the performed work. For a weeding operation, cameras in the front of Robotti can evaluate the site specific weed intensity and compare this with the effect of the implement by evaluating the treated area by rearward fac- ing camera. During the operation pull force and wheel slip is being measured and evaluated to ensure that Robotti is functioning properly and in good soil conditions. At the same time, Robotti is able to store these data about weed intensity, crop emergence and growth status. The data is continuously uploaded to the cloud and can be
18 ▶ FUTURE FARMING | 27 August 2019
shared with any farm management system through standard data exchange formats.
What if that everyday farmer needs assistance with his Robotti? Farmers can rely on our dealer network in our focus countries and collaboration partners like research institutes and universities have a direct line with our engineers. We currently focus on and sell in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Scandinavia through well-known and well established dealer networks. We have e.g. chosen the Netherlands because Dutch farmers are most proactive, technology minded and are very good business men and we see the Dutch market as extremely important for the implementation of robotics in Europe.
How does AgroIntelli succeed in developing solutions for global players? The company comes from being part of a big implement manu- facturer (Kongskilde Industries) where most of my team was working on robotic solutions. We are particularly strong in auto- mation, navigation and vision technologies and as I see it, we can innovate faster than bigger companies that have a lot more bureaucracy.
Examples include Kongskilde’s mother company CNH Industrial, for which we developed logistical concepts and multi-machine navigation. But we also build proofs of concept and finished prod- ucts like cameras. These projects basically fund the development of our own robotic platforms. Besides, it’s nothing new that big companies take over (concepts from) start-ups and scale-ups. In fact, more and more big companies create their own internal start-ups to speed up innovation with so-called intrapreneurs: internal entrepreneurs.
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