The autonomous vehicle presented at the beginning of 2024 proposed a new method without wasting water or fuel and without applying chemicals for weeding. A year later, between 4 and 6 February, this robotic platform named ‘EVAbot – Environmental Agricultural Robot’, created as part of the PRR Robotics4Farmers project, was put to the test at World FIRA 2025, in Toulouse (France).
“It has demonstrated its full application potential, autonomously navigating the demanding demonstration terrains of the event, which has established itself as one of the most relevant worldwide in the context of agricultural robotics”, says Jorge Martins, professor at Instituto Superior Técnico and researcher at the Mechanical Engineering Institute (idMEC).
“The technology developed at Técnico presented itself in a leadership position, in a sector in full development, and of extreme importance in the near future given the environmental and societal challenges that humanity currently faces”, he adds.
Professors Jorge Martins, Rui Coelho and João Reis, David Ribeiro and Alice Teixeira represented Técnico and were part of a multidisciplinary delegation, “focused on the modernisation of agricultural activity at the national level through the development, implementation, and dissemination of the most recent monitoring technologies and autonomous intervention in crops”.
The Human Robotics research group, integrated into idMEC’s Center for Intelligent Systems, has been expanding its focus from people’s health to environmental health. In this sense, in the context of the Robotics4Farmers project, it has adapted and developed focal intervention robotic systems with a view to promoting and accelerating the agroecological transition.
The project was developed by researchers and students from Técnico / IDMEC, and funded to the tune of 800,000 euros by the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR). The platform is equipped with front cameras that detect obstacles in the vicinity in the case of autonomous driving. Equipped with four-wheel drive, the vehicle has a suspension that adapts to the unevenness and irregularities of the terrain.
