Robot farmers are actually starting to work in the fields

After years of development, the first farming robots are finally ready to work in the fields : they are those developed by the Canopies project , designed to support workers in harvesting table grapes . Andrea Gasparri of the University of Roma Tre and Alessandro Marino of the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio discussed the latest developments at Automatica.it 2025, the annual conference organized by the Italian Society of Teachers and Researchers in Automation, taking place in Perugia.

"Our project wasn't created to replace workers but to address the real needs of agricultural entrepreneurs , particularly their difficulty in finding staff for seasonal work," Gasparri told ANSA, summarizing the results achieved over the four years of this European project, which also involved other European partners. "In industrial settings, such as car manufacturing, we find ourselves in structured environments. This isn't the case in fields, where many factors can constantly change, from wind to light to soil conditions. Our robots must therefore adapt to dynamic situations and adapt to the situation," Marino added. These challenges, however, have been largely overcome, so much so that the system developed over the years has been tested repeatedly on real vineyards to provide concrete assistance to workers, who are often too few to perform all the tasks today.

One of the major challenges was to simplify the interaction between humans and machines as much as possible , a solution achieved in particular thanks to the ability to communicate naturally with the robot and give it voice commands, thanks to Sapienza's contribution. The robots can thus work alongside operators, checking the ripeness of each bunch , picking the most suitable ones , or carrying out pruning .

"Our work demonstrates that the methodologies and technologies to do so are ready," the authors add, "and we see great interest from agricultural entrepreneurs as well. It remains now necessary to transform these tasks into commercial products, something that only businesses can do." Obviously, the authors emphasize, it's unthinkable for robots of this type to work completely autonomously, but they will be able to perform many tasks, particularly heavy lifting . The hope is that the arrival of these robots will completely transform agriculture and also have a major social impact: "transforming farmers into robot supervisors and allowing many women to access this work, access that was often precluded due to the physical strength required, and that it may become more attractive to everyone."