The Small Robot Company

Innovation:

The Small Robot Company

STAYING with robotics, co-founder of The Small Robot Company Ben Scott-Robinson says the business is revolutionising arable farming with easy, low-cost, service of light, autonomous, precision agri-robotics.

He says: “They are called Tom [monitoring], Dick [crop care] and Harry [planting]. They are controlled by an AI-based operating system called Wilma. “Tom lives on the farm, continuously collecting per-plant, real-time data. Wilma converts this into instructions for Dick and Harry, who only go to the farm when they are needed. Dick cares for the crop through non-chemical weeding and precision spraying.

Harry precision plants to the perfect depth and spacing with no ploughing. “Together, they will reduce inputs by 90 per cent, while increasing yield. They are designed to scale to any size farm, from one-hectare to 100,000ha.” “This service has been designed for farmers, by farmers. We have invented farming as a service. Farmers do not buy our robots, they pay us £400/year for the delivery of a healthy wheat crop.”