UniBots Ltd

UniBots provides a conduit from existing university designs and prototypes around the world into the commercial sector.

The name UniBots is a shortened version of University Robots

Contact Simon Blackmore at simon(at)unibots(dot)com.

Activities in 2009

• 10 Nov-1 Dec. In Greece
• 5th Nov. Presentation to the Sino-German conference in Stuttgart
• 28-29 Oct. Talk to the HGCA research conference
• 19-23 Oct. Nova short course on Biosystems Instrumentation in Copenhagen.
• 9 Oct. Awarded the Ying Ding Chair at South China Agricultural University.
• 4-16 Oct visiting SCAU in Guangzhou and CAU Beijing in China for the JIAC conference
• 9 Sept Green Robot day Odense, Denmark. Report
• 2 - 24 Sept in Greece
• 22 July GrowBots proposal submitted to Brussels. 22 partners from 10 countries
• 19 July. SAFAR2 updated.
• 9th July. FutureFarm and GrowBots meetings at WUR.
• 6-8th July. ECPA/EFITA/ECPLF (JIAC 2009) conference and the Field robot event held at WUR, the Netherlands
• 4th-21st June. University of Thessaly, Greece
• 11th May. FP7-NMP-2009-LARGE-3 Stage2 meeting in Brussels
• 25 April- 9th May. University of Thessaly, Greece
• 8th April. Approval of Stage1 for the GrowBots proposal
• 1st April. Giving evidence to the all party parliamentary group on agriculture and food for development. 
• 23 - 29 March. Invited speaker at Agrophysical Institute of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia.
• 23 Feb-13 March. Working in Volos, Greece.
• 17 Feb. Submitted GrowBots consortium bid to NMP Automation and robotics call. 25 partners!
• 29 Jan. Changed ISP and servers for UniBots and FutureFarm. There still might be some problems....
• 27-30 Jan. FutureFarm meeting in Rome
• Pictures from Chile (and Patagonia!)
• Jan 09. I will be attending the Fruitic 2009 conference in Chile. (Brochure, Presentation)
• 2008

Upcoming Events

• 2010 Field Robot Event www.fre2010.de

Current projects

Here are some of our current projects

• ExploreSim Complied ProMRDS example for student use.
• The FutureFarm project (2008-2010).
• Software Architecture for Agricultural Robots(SAFAR)
• Agricultural Robots Portal
• Agricultural robotic designs
• At last! A free WGS84 to UTM converter from mobotsoft.

Jobs

Services

Bespoke development of robots and controllers as solutions for outdoor automation.
Consultation on design and operation of mobile robots
Application areas

• Agriculture, horticulture and forestry
• Parks and large gardens
• Patrolling and security

Previous projects

As we move from Precision Farming to Phytotechnology, we imply the use of smarter machines or even the development of robotic agriculture. This paper sets out how developed agriculture could change from managing at the field scale, down to sub-field scale (Precision Farming) and eventually care for individual plants according to their needs. Phytotechnology is the word we now use to describe plant scale technology (Phyto comes from the Greek word phuton, or plant)

Development of an autonomous tractor. One of the first projects we started in KVL was to automate various functions of a small tractor so that it could carry out a number of simple tasks by itself.

Development of an autonomous Christmas tree weeder. This project was designed to replace the use of herbicides with mechanical control of the weeds growing underneath and around the young Christmas trees.

Robotic weeding is a classic example of where more intelligently targeted inputs can reduce the chemicals to the point where only micro amounts are needed.

Last updated Dec 2009
If there are any problems or comments about this site, please contact me at simon(at)unibots(dot)com