Researchers from the University of Münster and the University of California, Davis modelled the costs of small battery-electric field robots and published the study in Nature Communications.
The model uses a hypothetical 200 kg robot with cameras, GPS and lidar. It does soil preparation, sowing, weeding, irrigation and fertilising for 18 hours a day. Harvesting stays conventional.
The study calculates a 75% fall in production costs for organic onions and about 47% for organic lettuce. Strawberries stay slightly more expensive with the robot.
The savings are not measured on working farms. They come from engineering calculations, crop data and published cost estimates, and real costs may differ.
