BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — The EarthSense agricultural robot is already known as the most full-featured and popular platform for field phenotyping, or observing and defining the traits of an organism. Widely used by crop breeders and field scientists around the world, the ground-based device has recently been retooled to distribute cover crop seed for farmers and farm cooperative services.

For this version of the robot, gone are the expensive “lidar” cameras necessary for plant breeders to observe phenotypes, replaced by simple vision cameras necessary only to guide the four-wheeled robot under the corn leaf canopy. The new “Mach III” EarthSense robot was demonstrated by Dennis Bowman, University of Illinois Extension digital agriculture specialist, during a recent Field Talk hosted by the Illinois Soybean Association at Heartland Community College’s Ag Complex.

“This is a ground based robot that can seed cover crops into standing corn,” Bowman said, after explaining that the original EarthSense model was co-developed around a decade ago at the University of Illinois Research Park by Dr. Chinmay Soman and Dr. Girish Chowdhary, who continue to operate the company. Initially developed for seed breeders, the second incarnation of the robot was utilized for weeding of nuisance plants. 

During the COVID-19 crisis, EarthSense, Inc. and the University of Illinois created autonomous sanitizing robots to help reduce transmission of the virus in hospitals and other public buildings. 

“(Soman and Chowdary) saw the need to get cover crop seed out earlier in the season, so they put their weeding robot on hold until a little bit further down the line,” said Bowman. “This machine will drive itself up and down the corn rows and spread seed. It has vision sensors built into it and a computer system that can see the rows and predict the path between the rows so that the robot can drive itself through the field.

“It has a GPS but the GPS under the corn canopy gets to be unreliable under the canopy. The vision system works much better for navigation through the field.”

Bowman pointed out the many advantages he says the EarthSense robot holds over aerial applications and other over-the-top seed broadcasting methods. “Corn is a big funnel that has a tendency to catch some of that aerial cover crop seed. We’re finding that we can get a lot lower seeding rate and get that seed right down on the ground to start with. Hopefully the application cost will be a little cheaper,” he said. 

The estimated cost for the EarthSense cover crop seeding model is around $5,000 per unit, according to Bowman. This makes the device much more affordable than its predecessors, though the Extension expert said he sees agricultural service cooperatives as the primary customers for EarthSense Mach III robots. 

“Somebody could (fill up) a trailer load of these and bring them out to a farm, and set them up out in the field,” Bowman said. “To keep the cost of this robot down, they took what they learned from the lidar and applied it to three cheap cameras that are on the front of the cover crop seeder. We wanted this product to be very scalable, we want it to work for small farmers, specialty farmers and large farmers who can bring in a trailer of these and put them to work.”

The EarthSense robot was developed through the U of I’s Center for Digital Agriculture and an “AI For Agriculture” autonomous farming grant from the United States Department of Agriculture. Gaining earlier access in seeding cover crops was the primary idea behind its latest incarnation. Field tests conducted at the U of I’s Farm of the Future and elsewhere showed that earlier seeding translates to better cover crop stands, leading to the product’s development. 

The EarthSense cover crop seeder holds 90 pounds of cereal rye (Illinois’ most used cover crop) seed and can broadcast 2.5 to 3 acres of seed per load. At a seeding rate of 30 pounds per acre, the 18-inch wide robot can seed three-plus 30-inch rows per pass. Four of the devices can seed around 40 corn acres with cover crops in 3-4 hours. 

The seeder’s lithium-polymer batteries last between 3-4 hours when fully charged, but take a “long time” to recharge. For this reason, Bowman recommends those who purchase the robot also buy a backup battery. 

“I’ll be anxious to see what we learn this season. We’re going to be seeding cover crops into corn test plots before Labor Day,” Bowman said. “We’re striving to keep the cost level for these robots with any other seeding methods available.”

As field tests continue on the EarthSense cover crop seeder, Chowdrey and a team of graduate students are also working to develop a robot specifically tailored for horseradish planting.

For more information on EarthSense robots, visit www.earthsense.com.