Director of LIAT coins new farming technology as ‘one of the key innovations to future of farming’.

Professor Simon Pearson unveils the Thorvald robot at the University of Lincoln’s Riseholme Campus, alongside  Computer Science and Agri-food academics who are working on the project.

Prof Pearson starts off by introducing the new Thorvald robot, and is the second in the world. The new farming robot was produced by collaborators in the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, and it is now the job of researchers from the Lincoln Institute of Agri-food Technology to get the robot running by itself.

“The idea is, it will wander round fields, sensing crops, sensing soils, measuring fertility, measuring moisture, then providing that information back to farmers so they can increase the precision of their agriculture systems.”

With wheels large enough to run smoothly across fields, grass and muddy terrains, the large square structure will see farmers use robots as carriers and extra man-power in their fields.

A new state-of-the-art sensor will be fitted to the Thorvald robot to measure soil moisture in high definition. Simon emphasises how “it’s the hardest thing for farmers to measure”.

He added: “It could be weeding equipment, spraying equipment, it could be who knows what, but what farmers need is a platform to move across their fields so we can increase the precision of their agricultural systems.

See the full video below