Robotics & Automation for Soil Resilience (RASR)

土壤对我们的福祉至关重要：全球95%的粮食生产依赖于土壤，它是四分之一陆地物种的家园，它在储存碳和水方面发挥着至关重要的作用，这有助于缓解气候变化和防止洪水。然而，世界各地的土壤正在退化。提高生产率和利润率的措施正在推广--精确使用投入、减少耕作、作物轮作和生物肥料。这些做法可以改善土壤健康，进而提高产量、作物弹性，并最终在英国建立一个更具经济和生态弹性的农业食品部门(土壤协会--拯救我们的土壤，2021年)。与当前土壤采样和分析技术相关的成本和准确性阻碍了传统农业看待和监测我们最宝贵资产的方式的潜在革命。几位强烈支持该项目的英国农民已经证实了这一点。该合作项目的目标是加快土壤健康采样、监测和分析的自动化和标准化，为英国农民和种植者解锁土壤弹性指标、生产力提高和新兴市场，并朝着净零排放迈进。测量、监测和验证(MRV)土壤健康、生物多样性和碳的能力正变得越来越重要，特别是对于希望参与新的政府计划(DEFRA SFI、ELMS和BNG)和碳市场的企业。该提议发挥了各自合作伙伴的优势，E-Nano与卫星应用程序Catapult(RTO)合作领导了该联盟，为了实现其目标，土壤弹性机器人与自动化(RASR)联盟将开发一个具有成本效益的第二代全自主机器人平台，该平台将在一系列地形和农场类型上进行设计和测试，同时纳入一个不可知的“即插即用”传感器有效载荷。

Soil is vital for our wellbeing: 95% of global food production relies on soil, it is home to a quarter of all terrestrial species, and it plays a crucial role in storing carbon and water, which helps mitigate climate change and prevent flooding. Yet, soils around the world are being degraded.Practices to improve productivity and profitability are being promoted -precision use of inputs, reducing tillage, crop rotations, biological fertilisers. These practices can improve soil health, which in turn improves yields, crop resilience and ultimately a more economically and ecologically resilient agri-food sector in the UK (Soil Association-Save our Soils, 2021).Cost and accuracy associated with current soil sampling and analysing techniques are holding back a potential revolution in the way conventional agriculture views and monitors our most precious asset. This has been validated by several English farmers who strongly advocate for this project.The aim of this collaborative project is to accelerate the automation and standardisation of soil health sampling, monitoring and analysis to unlock soil resilience metrics, productivity gains and emerging markets, and progress towards net zero emissions, for UK farmers & growers.The ability to measure, monitor and verify (MRV) soil health, biodiversity and carbon is becoming more important, particularly for businesses wishing to partake in new government schemes (DEFRA SFI, ELMS and BNG) and carbon markets.The proposal works to the strengths of the respective partners, E-Nano leading this consortium in collaboration with Satellite Applications Catapult (RTO), Harper Adams (academia), listt.io, and Autodiscovery.To achieve its aim, the Robotics & Automation for Soil Resilience (RASR) consortium will develop a cost-effective, 2nd generation, fully autonomous robotic platform designed and tested across a range of terrains and farm types whilst incorporating an agnostic 'plug and play' sensor payload.