National Agri-Robotics Proving Ground

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This project is a two-month feasibility study that explores the concept of establishing and subsequent broad impacts resulting from a National Robotics Proving Ground that concentrates on robots in the agri-food pipeline. There are substantial opportunities for integrating a range of service (and industrial) robots across this sector, which employs just under 4 million employees, or 13% of the total UK workforce. Including agriculture, manufacturing, wholesaling, retailing and catering, this sector contributed £127 billion or 6.4% of national GVA in 2019 \[DEFRA\_Agriculture\_in\_the\_UK\_2020\]. The disproportion between GVA and national workforce makes a compelling argument for accelerating the application of robotics in this sector, particularly in light of the 58% increase in living wage over the last 5 years and the labour shortages stemming largely from Brexit and Covid-19\.The vision for this National Agri-Robotics Proving Ground comprises an innovative and interdisciplinary strategy focussed on technical challenges while highlighting socio-economic issues. The goals of this study are to answer the following questions:* Would the national robotics community be better served and realise more advantage from existing infrastructure and equipment investment through one physical centre or a connected set of distributed facilities?* Which additional domains, outside of agri-food, are naturally linked to agri-food, through technology-based themes and how can they share in the benefits of an agri-food themed proving ground?* Can digital twins support remote access and experimentation?* How can the national proving ground be operated in order to best serve to advance scientific research and technology readiness, with direct application to the agri-food sector, as well as beyond?* How can the national proving ground look beyond the technical realm and provide facilities to test societal and safety aspects of robotics, educate the general public and stimulate discussion across a range of economic and policy factors associated with real-world deployment of robots?To address these goals within the given two-month time period the project is structured as two activities. The first month of the project focuses on consultation, reaching across the broad and diverse communities directly and indirectly affected by the integration of robots in real-world settings, with the objective of identifying technical needs, socio-economic concerns and practical issues. The second month of the project focuses on design, pulling together and analysing the results of the consultation period, with the objective of producing a comprehensive specification for the proposed proving ground, with recommendations on facilities, location(s) and financial scope.