The project of a robot for growing maize was carried out by a consortium of two entities from the Łukasiewicz Research Network: Industrial Institute of Agricultural Machines and the Institute of Aviation and the consortium leader, UNIA sp.z o.o. The project received funding over PLN 12 million within the “Fast path” competition of the National Center for Research and Development (NCBR).

The precise operation of the field robot will enable a significant reduction in the consumption of fertilizers and plant protection products. It will sow, heal, monitor the condition of the crop and conduct selective spraying. And all this is realized in accordance with modern agrotechnical knowledge and ecology.

The acreage of maize sown in Poland increased from 728 thousand ha in 2010 to 1154 thousand ha in 2017 with the simultaneous growing import of corn, which proves the need for further development of this crop in Poland according to the designers of the innovative device.

Corn is just the beginning of implementations of the solution. The far-reaching vision of the robot’s development covers a wide range of applications, primarily in the case of other wide-row crops, such as sugar beet, potatoes, as well as vegetable crops.