EcoRobotix to test its robot weeders this spring

Following the closing of their first financing round with CHF 3M in November 2016, the ecoRobotix team has achieved another milestone just at the right time of the year: the delivery of ten pre-series specimens of the robot weeder. “We were very impatient,” explains Aurélien Demaurex, co-founder of the start-up company. “It’s a bit like unwrapping a present. It conjures up two kinds of feelings. One is happy to see them finally arrive, as it marks the last but one stage before we go into actual production. And then at the same time there’s going to be this phase of testing, with all the surprises that is likely to bring”, he added.

While the market launch of the machines is scheduled for the start of next year, the pre-series of robots just delivered to the ecoRobotix workshops in Essert-Pittet is intended for practical tests on a large scale, and for the duration of an entire farming season.

“It’s the first time we have carried out tests on a scale like this. Numerous European partners – scientific, commercial and public – will be joining us in a scrutiny of the standard functioning of the device,’ says Steve Tanner, the other co-founder of the start-up.

Operating the robot by smartphone
The machines are controlled from a distance, thanks to an application specially created for the user for installation on their smartphone. The data collected in the course of testing on the robot’s basic crops (beetroot and rape), as well as further crop varieties, will be collated for analysis at the head office of ecoRobotix in Yverdon-les-Bains.

“That will enable us to make the final adjustments before serial production.” If the entire team of engineers at ecoRobotix can’t wait to see the start of practical testing scheduled for the beginning of April, their test partners are no less excited. “We are hoping that the results will be positive and pleasing all round,” Aurélien Demaurex concludes.

(RAN)