The agROBOfood project, financed by the EU through Horizon 2020, closed its activities at the end of February 2024, and had the overall objective to establish and expand a network of agri-food robotics Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs) to make the European agri-food sector more efficient and competitive.
Now, the final report for the project is out.
This final report describes the overall objectives, strategy and main achievements of the agROBOfood project. After an introduction of the concept of Digital Innovation Hubs, its stakeholders, and the relevance of robotics for the agri-food sector, the establishment and growth of the network of DIHs is explained. Success factors were the adoption of the regional approach with seven regional cluster coordinators and the opportunity to work with attractive open calls for innovation experiments. The network has been supported by using the following tools: website and portal, social media on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube, organising events, newsletter, Github for technology mapping and access to funding information. Services are the main product the DIHs deliver. The development in the categorisation of services and how it is represented in a service catalogue and on the website is clarified. The lessons learned of the service delivery in the context of the agROBOfood project are also described. Finally, the future of the sustained agROBOfood network after the end of the project is explained. Not only are the mission, vision, added value, main products, government and initial business model described, attention is also paid to the changing environment in robotics and DIHs to illustrate the role the agROBOfood network is expected to play.
To demonstrate a variety of innovative robotic solutions and to test service delivery of the agROBOfood network eleven innovation experiments and nine industrial challenges are reported on. These experiments were all selected as part of an open call process. Included are four experiments with robotic solutions in the post-harvest food production chain, three in harvesting and thinning, one in livestock and a vast majority of twelve experiments focused on crop care management. Lessons learned from these experiments are also described.
The report can be read here.
This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement Nº 825395.