VINBOT is a robotic sensing platform that allows autonomously to capture spectral information in vineyard plots.
It was born from a project that received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Program for research, technological development and demonstration under a FP7-SME-2013-2-605630 grant agreement in which 9 European organizations participated.
- Agri-Ciência, Consultores de Engenharia
- Instituto Superior de Agronomia
- Cooperativa Agrícola de Granja
- Robotnik
- Ateknea Solutions
- Orgoványi Gazdaszövetkezet
- Bodegas Familiares de Rioja
- Assist
- D'Alfonso del Sordo
VINBOT navigates autonomously in the vineyard and collects information that after processing has as main objective to create a georeferenced and anticipated map of the productivity spots of the monitored plots.
This information can be used by the grower as a tool to support the decision, allowing for example to determine the most appropriate time to collect the grapes, according to the production needs and the type of wine desired.
The wine grower who knows his vineyard has, in general, empirical knowledge, resulting largely from visual observation of his plots. This technology allows, each year, to make a more detailed survey of the behavior of the plant, both in vegetative and productive terms with concrete information about the spatial variability. Consequently, you will be able to build a historical database that is much more accurate than empirical knowledge. The combination of the two will be the ideal scenario. For example, in "normal" years, the winemaker can take advantage of the areas of lower production, which have an earlier maturation and forward these grapes earlier, to give rise to a higher quality wine while the rest allow to wait and try equally a harvest at the optimum point of quality.