Project name: Structured Ecological CULtivation with Autonomous Robots In Agriculture
Project acronym: SPECULARIA
Dates: 01.06.2018 - 31.05.2023
Total budget: 1,794,905.62 HRK
Funding: Croatian Science Foundation (HRZZ)
Project number: UIP-2017-05-4042
Website: http://specularia.fer.hr/
SPECULARIA
This project deals with concepts of compliant robot control, soft robotics, and heterogeneous robotic systems and utilizes them to help farmers in indoor organic agriculture.
The main goal is to develop a heterogeneous robotic system comprised of three agents: an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV), and a compliant multi-degree-of-freedom manipulator. The UAV is equipped with a lightweight multi-degree-of-freedom manipulator carrying sensors for plant surveillance. The manipulator enables the UAV to fly outside the danger area, where its prop wash wind gust can damage the plant. The UGV is equipped with a mechanism that allows it to transport growth unit containers, which are the smallest organization unit within the farm, consisting of a single or variety of plants. The compliant manipulator’s task is to perform delicate handling of plants, such as flower and fruit manipulation, and plant pruning. Each robot has a specific set of abilities, but when put to work together, they can be applied to achieve versatile goals in an unstructured environment, which an indoor organic farm most certainly is.
UAV with manipulator for inspection
Compliant manipulator for plant treatment
UGV for container transport
On Wednesday, 19th December, we held a fund-raising event for the Autism Association Zagreb, where the robots from our Laboratory worked together to serve the visitors with chocolate waffles, brownies and tea or mulled wine. This exciting event was visited by over 2000 people and some 700 orders were taken and served, which resulted in the amazing amount of over 13 thousand kuna (almost €2000) in donations, all of which will be given to the Autism Association Zagreb. We would like to give our gratitude to everyone who took part in this great event and wish everyone happy holidays!
The humanoid robot Pepper took the visitors' orders, our robot arm Franka prepared them and the industrial robot Baxter (owned by LAMOR) served the orders. NAO robots were active during the whole event to keep everyone entertained and in good cheer, while guests also had the opportunity to try out STEMI Hexapods, see what our Sphero robots can do and grab a Christmas-themed keychain printed during the day on a 3D printer. You can find some photos of the event on this link.