The groundbreaking Scottish partnership unleashes the power of 5G connected robotics and transforms precise agriculture.
Five organizations are developing robotic systems that enable them to perform detailed agricultural tasks such as crop health monitoring, target fertilizer applications, and soil assessment, enabled by the Portable 5G Private Network.
The aim of this innovation is to address pressing issues in modern agriculture, including rising input costs, labor shortages, strict environmental regulations and the need to boost food production while reducing environmental harm.
Traditional agriculture tends to apply treatment uniformly across the field, but 5G-connected robots allow farmers to manage resources per plant, optimizing efficiency and sustainability.
Using high-speed connections, robots can communicate safely with each other in real time, send detailed data about crop and soil conditions, allowing farmers to make informed and timely decisions.
The key hurdles – limited rural network coverage – are overcome through a rapidly deployable private 5G network, providing low latency, high bandwidth connectivity essential for real-time operations.
The robotic system can stream high-resolution video and generate detailed field maps. Visual recognition techniques under development allow them to quickly detect disease, pests, or water stress much faster than traditional methods, allowing for aggressive intervention.
Previously reliant on expensive specialized equipment and expertise, these features are now more accessible and affordable.
Partnerships include the National Robotarium, James Hutton Institute, Scotland 5G Centre, Boston Dynamics, and Anawa.
“We’ve been working hard to get the most out of our business,” said Ruth Plant, Project Manager.
“We have successfully demonstrated that a portable 5G network can provide the connectivity needed for real-time robot operation in an agricultural environment.
“Integrating these technologies creates opportunities for precision farming that were previously impossible in areas with limited connectivity.”
Andrew Christie, Agritech specialist at the James Hutton Institute, emphasized that Robotics is the next step in the evolution of precision agriculture technology moving towards fully data-driven agriculture.
However, the need for fast and reliable communication and the reliance on manual data processing has slowed progress.
He said: “As an evolution of precision agriculture technology, robotics represents the next step towards fully data-driven agriculture.
“However, the need for fast, reliable communication and manual data processing has hindered ingestion.”
Christie added that by incorporating a 5G private network, these obstacles can be resolved by transferring huge amounts of data with minimal delay and enhancing the functionality of current equipment.
This leap in technology will also encourage developments such as swarm robotics, real-time sensor networks for digital twinning, and dynamic data processing via cloud services.
