Products · AgriBot

AgriBot

Name: AgriBot
Brand: M-Tech

In development

Scouts the crop. Finds the disease. Cuts it out.

A field robot for cabbage farms with two robot arms, on-board AI and a hardware safety system. One arm inspects each suspicious leaf up close; the other grips and cuts it in one motion, before the disease spreads.

Hardware

Chassis

Aluminium extrusion frame with a deck, plus front and rear bumpers wired as a safety loop.

Scroll to build AgriBot

Chassis — Aluminium extrusion frame with a deck, plus front and rear bumpers wired as a safety loop.
Drive — 4WD skid-steer: four 12 V gear motors with Hall encoders and large off-road wheels for field rows.
Power — A 21700 Li-ion battery pack (6S2P, 21.6 V) in a hot-swap bay, feeding PWR-1 — our own power & safety board.
Real-time controller — Cytron MOTION 2350 Pro (RP2350) runs the wheels, reads the radio and watches the battery.
Brain & 4G — Raspberry Pi 5 with AI HAT+ (13 TOPS, Hailo-8L) — all the AI runs on the robot, no laptop needed — plus a 4G modem.
Housing — A compact black anodised aluminium housing closes over the electronics, with vents, cable glands and a side door to hot-swap the battery.
Sensors, display & e-stop — On the lid: LD19 LiDAR, a 7-inch display that shows what the robot sees, the e-stop and antennas. The front camera looks down the row.
Two robot arms + bin — Two Elephant Robotics myCobot 320 arms (6 axes, 1 kg payload each) on the lid, crop side, with a collection bin between them.
Camera + cutter — Arm B carries an inspection camera with an LED ring light. Arm A carries a cut-and-hold cutter that grips the leaf and cuts it in one motion.
Real-time control — Wheel speed PID with encoder feedback. If the radio or the Pi goes quiet for 200 ms, the wheels stop.
Mapping & navigation — ROS 2 with LiDAR SLAM and Nav2 maps the field and drives along the row.
Edge AI vision — The front camera and a two-stage YOLOv8 model scan every plant and flag the ones that look unhealthy.
Close inspection — Arm B brings its camera to the suspicious leaf. The live view appears on the robot’s display with the identified class: Healthy, Alternaria Spot, Black Rot or Downy Mildew.
Cut & hold — Arm A grips the infected leaf and cuts it in one motion, then drops it into the collection bin so the disease can’t spread. Arm B keeps watching.
Telemetry — Battery, detections and position stream over 4G to a web dashboard.
Hardware safety — E-stop and bumpers cut arm and motor power directly — no software in the loop.
AgriBot — Hardware and software, working as one field robot.

Specifications

Target specifications

AgriBot is in development. Specifications are design targets and may change after field testing.

Purpose

Task: Crop scouting, leaf-disease detection and removal of infected leaves
Crop: Cabbage (other leafy crops planned)
Not for: Harvesting whole heads (1–3 kg)

Manipulation

Arms: 2 × Elephant Robotics myCobot 320, 6-DOF, 1 kg payload each
Arm A: Cut-and-hold cutter (high-torque servo + blade): grips and cuts in one motion
Arm B: Inspection camera with LED ring light for close-up leaf checks
Leaf disposal: On-board collection bin

Compute & AI

Main computer: Raspberry Pi 5, 8 GB
AI accelerator: Raspberry Pi AI HAT+, 13 TOPS (Hailo-8L)
Vision model: Two-stage YOLOv8n: detect → classify
Classes: Healthy, Alternaria Spot, Black Rot, Downy Mildew

Real-time control

Controller: Cytron MOTION 2350 Pro (RP2350)
Functions: Wheel PID, encoders, ELRS input, battery monitor
Failsafe: Stops if radio or Pi heartbeat is lost for 200 ms

Perception

LiDAR: LDRobot LD19 2D LiDAR (obstacle zone, SLAM)
Cameras: Front camera for row scanning; inspection camera on Arm B
Contact: Front and rear bumper switches

Mobility

Drive: 4WD skid-steer
Motors: 4 × JGB37-520 12 V gear motors with Hall encoders
Frame: Aluminium extrusion chassis, off-road wheels
Housing: Black anodised aluminium, vented, with a hot-swap battery door

Power

Battery: 21700 Li-ion pack, 6S2P (12 cells), 21.6 V nominal / 25.2 V full, hot-swap side door
Power board: PWR-1 (own design): 5 regulated rails, reverse-polarity and surge protection, battery current sensing
Runtime: [To be measured]

Control & comms

Manual control: RadioMaster ELRS 2.4 GHz long-range radio
Close range: PS5 DualSense controller (optional)
Telemetry: 4G link to a web dashboard
On-board display: 7-inch screen: live inspection view and identified disease class

Safety

E-stop: Mushroom button, hard-wired
Power cut: E-stop or bumper cuts arm and motor power in hardware
Priority: E-stop / bumper > radio failsafe > manual > autonomy

Software

Robot OS: ROS 2 with slam_toolbox and Nav2
Arms: pymycobot
Firmware: arduino-pico on the RP2350

Interested in AgriBot?

We are looking for farms, agencies and research partners for field trials. Tell us about your crop and site.