Robotics & Automation for Soil Resilience (RASR)

Soil is vital for our wellbeing: 95% of global food production relies on soil, it is home to a quarter of all terrestrial species, and it plays a crucial role in storing carbon and water, which helps mitigate climate change and prevent flooding. Yet, soils around the world are being degraded.

Practices to improve productivity and profitability are being promoted -precision use of inputs, reducing tillage, crop rotations, biological fertilisers. These practices can improve soil health, which in turn improves yields, crop resilience and ultimately a more economically and ecologically resilient agri-food sector in the UK (Soil Association-Save our Soils, 2021).

Cost and accuracy associated with current soil sampling and analysing techniques are holding back a potential revolution in the way conventional agriculture views and monitors our most precious asset. This has been validated by several English farmers who strongly advocate for this project.

The aim of this collaborative project is to accelerate the automation and standardisation of soil health sampling, monitoring and analysis to unlock soil resilience metrics, productivity gains and emerging markets, and progress towards net zero emissions, for UK farmers & growers.

The ability to measure, monitor and verify (MRV) soil health, biodiversity and carbon is becoming more important, particularly for businesses wishing to partake in new government schemes (DEFRA SFI, ELMS and BNG) and carbon markets.

The proposal works to the strengths of the respective partners, E-Nano leading this consortium in collaboration with Satellite Applications Catapult (RTO), Harper Adams (academia), listt.io, and Autodiscovery.

To achieve its aim, the Robotics & Automation for Soil Resilience (RASR) consortium will develop a cost-effective, 2nd generation, fully autonomous robotic platform designed and tested across a range of terrains and farm types whilst incorporating an agnostic 'plug and play' sensor payload.