The ground-breaking Hands Free Hectare project (HFHa), run by Harper Adams University and Precision Decisions has won the IAgrE 2018 Team Achievement Award.

The project, which uses automated machines growing the first arable crop remotely, without operators in the driving seats or agronomists on the ground ran from late 2016 to harvest time in 2017. It continues this year as the technology is refined and developed.

The IAgrE Team Achievement Awards was presented to Martin Abell, Kit Franklin and Jonathan Gill from the Hands-Free Hectare project by incoming IAgrE President Professsor Jane Rickson at a special awards ceremony held at Wrest Park, Silsoe, Bedfordshire

This new award is presented in recognition of successful team work and demonstrates what can be achieved with collaboration.

“This is teamwork at its best. Agricultural Engineering is highly multi-disciplinary and the Hands-Free Hectare project is a great example of engineers and scientists working together to find solutions and is in the tradition of our great industry. IAgrE was delighted to celebrate this great achievement which has reached out to enthuse the next generation of engineers and agriculturalists,” said IAgrE CEO Alastair Taylor.

Martin Abell, mechatronics researcher for industry partner Precision Decisions said, “We’re returning, thanks to funding from the AHDB and the continued support from our industry sponsors, to try and increase the yield through increasing accuracy of our machinery and improved remote agronomy. We’re trying to push for a more competitive yield compared to what you see on the AHDB recommended lists and all other trials data available.

“It was brilliant to be part of the team that achieved this world first and to help lay down a marker in this sector. We’ve recently started seeing many commercial organisations coming out with their own autonomous agricultural solutions, showing that there’re working on this. I think we could start seeing autonomous tractors and robots on farms any day.”