With the enhanced capabilities of LAR, the University of Lincoln now leads a regional and national cluster of synergistic projects. The research cluster works with industry partners to support the development and deployment of agricultural robotics – generating positive economic impacts, and influencing policy.

Since its inception in 2016, LAR and its partners have grown into the largest Agri- technology Institute, supporting local industry and impacting agriculture both nationally and
internationally. Now world-leading, the LAR research cluster has helped secure 149 Agri-Tech projects worth over £100m in total. These involve over 250 unique partners in industry – from micro businesses to global Tier 1 companies – as well as research and university centres, government agencies, and third-sector bodies in the UK, Europe, and the Americas.

The team also lead two growing MSc programmes in Agri-Food Technology and Sustainability, and co-lead a BSc in Robotics and MSc in Data Science and Applied Analytics.

LAR continues to support other major cluster projects, including Barclays’ Eagle Farm Lab – which leads national agri-tech start-up support – and CERES Agri-Tech, led by Cambridge University. Spin-off projects by CERES at LAR focused on the automation of mushroom harvesting (Agaricus Robots) and robotic automated fruit prediction (FruitCast).

Two major recently-funded initiatives ensure LAR continues to grow. These include Place Based Impact Acceleration Account (PBIAA) funding from EPSRC, and Connecting Capability Funding (CCF) from Research England. Collaborative funding will help transform early-stage academic innovation and technology into commercially attractive opportunities.
The LAR team, together with partners Cambridge Enterprise Ltd. and the Universities of Cambridge and East Anglia, will work with civic and global partners, industry, farmers, and
growers to develop infrastructures, networks and skills.

The drive provided by the establishment of LAR continues to act as a nucleus for a much larger cluster of Agri-Tech projects. LAR has been the key enabler because it created a team with the scale to support multiple partnerships with industry, academia and government. Having been named ‘the world’s first global centre of excellence in agricultural robotics’ in the UK Innovation Strategy (2021), LAR’s ambition is to remain the world’s most successful, collaborative and progressive cluster in agricultural robotics.

• The world’s first open development platform for agri-robotic crop harvesting (AGRI-OPENCORE, Professor Grzegorz Cielniak)
• New benchmarks for nitrogen use efficiency (NUEProfits, Professor Grzegorz Cielniak)
• Automated crop grading for delicate produce such as strawberries and grapes (Qualicrop, Professor Grzegorz Cielniak)The world’s first AI enabled self-propelled robotic crop sprayer (Robo-sprayer, Professor Timothy Gordon)
• A scalable plant mapping system for improved yield forecast models (FinerForecasts, Associate Professor Shaun Coutts)
• The world’s first commercial mushroom harvesting robot (Agaricus Robotic Harvester, Professor Simon Pearson)
• A whole systems approach towards climate resilient, controlled-environment agriculture
  (Climate SAFE, Professor Simon Pearson)
• Collaborative human-robot picking / transporting teams for the soft fruit industry (Co-FRUIT, Professor Elizabeth Sklar)

Our first spin-out company, FruitCast Ltd, launched in Autumn 2021. Created by LIAT PhD student Raymond Martin, who developed automated robotic fruit counting and analysis tools to improve the reliability and accuracy of harvest prediction, FruitCast is on a mission to revolutionise the farming industry with farm digitisation and yield forecasting as-a-service.

FruitCast Ltd

This unique AI-enabled data analytics platform brings unparalleled accuracy to soft-fruit growers, empowering operational teams to optimise farm labour, scheduling, and supply chain resources. The platform does this by non-destructively measuring individual fruit numbers, weight, and maturity of millions of berries per day. Combined with other data sources, FruitCast’s algorithms can predict yield up to six weeks ahead.

FruitCast has received funding from three Innovate UK projects over the course of two years, totalling over £2m. These projects are allowing the company to further develop their FruitCast system so it can be released commercially in 2024.

FruitCast’s Founder and Chief Technical Officer, Raymond Martin, completed his PhD with the University of Lincoln, supported by the Collaborative Training Partnership for Fruit Crop Research (CTP FCR) funded by BBSRC and Industry.

Improving Resilience for Strawberry Farms

FruitCast benefits growers and farmers, contributes to the sustainable intensification of food production and accelerates the net-zero transition. Our plan is to reduce yield forecast error
to less than +/-15% at plant level, three weeks in advance – unlocking significant productivity, sustainability, and resilience gains for UK strawberry farms:

• Fewer distress sales (20-25% price reduction)
• Stronger supply consistency, customer relationships and confidence
• 5% increased sales and prices, totalling to £13.6m (or £2.9k/ha)
• 10% decrease in imports (approximately 19,000T and £51m in UK shoulders) equating to £5.1m (or £1.1k/ha)
• 10% enhancement of labour scheduling, where labour accounts for 42% of costs, equivalent to £27.9m
• 20% waste reduction and increased shelf life (from WRAP@18KT/year), amounting to £6.0m (or £1.2k/ha)

10% enhancement of labour scheduling

16 new jobs created as of 2024

Funded by Innovate UK: £425K (Fruitful Forecasts), £996K (Crop Census), £806K (Finer Forecasts)