BT said that the project consortium has shown how key agricultural processes can be optimized through improving forecasting accuracy, increasing farm productivity and reducing fruit waste and fungicide use
U.K. operator BT said it has delivered a robotics platform and management system, as part of a project to explore the use of IoT and robotics in smart agriculture.
In a release, BT said that the main aim of the initiative is to drive automation, increase efficiency and improve environmental sustainability in agriculture.
The carrier also noted that the project aims to illustrate how a fleet of robots with various roles can interact and cooperate to form a robust supply chain operation.
BT said that the carrier and its partners have demonstrated a vision of the future of fruit farming, where robotics, powered only by renewable energy sources, will assist farmers by carrying out physical farm processes such as picking and packing fruit, as well as treating crops for pests and disease.
“By bringing together robotics and IoT, the project consortium has shown how key agricultural processes can be optimized through improving forecasting accuracy, increasing farm productivity, reducing farm labor and reducing fruit waste and fungicide use,” BT said.
The project is led by Saga Robotics, alongside partners BT, University of Lincoln, Berry Gardens Growers Ltd, Clock House Farm, University of Reading, and the Manufacturing Technology Centre. BT developed and tested the edge and cloud architecture to deliver the infrastructure through which the IoT services operate.
John Davies, chief researcher at BT, said: “We’re delighted to be part of the Robot Highways project to demonstrate how BT can help the agricultural sector to automate by integrating robotics and other solutions on a single platform. As a leader in network-based platforms and edge-infrastructure we are ideally placed to support advanced robotic farming operations.”
“We’re welcoming BT’s interest and support to help provide solutions that advance agricultural robotics in the U.K. Connectivity plays a key part to advance automation and precision agriculture and to enable increased food production with less resources,” said Anne Dingstad, CEO of Saga Robotics.
Earlier this year, BT revealed a ‘charter’ to invest almost £100 million over the next three years in its new Division X digital change unit, which is at the heart of its broader strategy to establish itself as a ‘tech-co’, offering sundry IoT 5G, AI, and IoT technologies in flexible edge-cloud combinations to spur “industries like” manufacturing, logistics, transportation, and healthcare.
The new charter sets out BT’s strategy to provide its private enterprise and public sector customers – which number 1.2 million in the UK, it says – with an edge-to-cloud “springboard” to “fuel innovation”, and, as per its list of target verticals, industrial revolution, as defined in the Industry 4.0 bible.
