Conpleks develops innovative security system for GrassBot2

The GrassBot2 project works on a field robot for harvesting and transportation of grass on lowland areas with an integrated security system handling the general steering of the field robot and the obstacle avoidance in the field such as animals, hydrants and other machines.

GrassBot2 builds on the previous GrassBot project that developed a lightweight field robot, which was able to harvest biomass on lowland areas. Therefore, the next step for GrassBot2 is to make the field robot able to gather the harvested biomass as well. Over time, the gathered biomass will be used for green protein production for feeding pigs and chickens, while the remaining product will be used for biogas.

Autonomous robot puts safety first
Traditional harvesting machines, which are heavy and thereby able to damage the carrying capacity of the turf, can only be used on lowland areas within a short period of time. Using the GrassBot2 project’s lightweight solution, lowland areas can be harvested over a longer period of time and thus several times during a season, increasing the yield and quality of the biomass.

Conpleks contributes with the above-mentioned innovative security system including an application controller handling the obstacle avoidance behavior, and a safety controller handling personal safety. The two controllers will respectively be coupled with sensors as well as cameras and software algorithms in collaboration with the other partners. In addition to developing the controllers, Conpleks develops a cloud solution that gathers the project data.

GrassBot2 starts May 1, 2018 and ends July 31, 2020. EU’s European Regional Development Fund and ERST/Region Midtjylland has allocated 6.001.157,39 kr. for the project. In addition to Conpleks Innovation, Agro Business Park, AgroIntelli, Bertelsen Design, Aarhus University – Agro and Aarhus University – Eng participate in the project.