Biobased smartphone chargers, biocomposite boats, smart fields, smart farms, surgery-scale biomaterials: The Digest’s Top 10 Innovations for the week of September 13th

#4 Bear Flag Robotics automates common farm tasks

In California, Bear Flag Robotics closed a $3.5 million seed funding round to continue developing autonomous technology for farms, which will help growers lower operational costs and increase yields.

Autonomous robots can lower labor expenses and also increase yields by up to 15 percent according to research. Bear Flag Robotics’ autonomous driving technology for farm tractors equips tractors and implements with technology that allows growers to automate many of their most common tasks. These include spraying and mowing operations in specialty crops such as nuts, fruits and grapes and common ground prep tasks.

As a result, Bear Flag enables a single supervisor to operate a fleet of vehicles, where an entire crew was once required. Bear Flag will provide leasing options to growers who wish to operate their own fleet of autonomous equipment. Additionally, they will offer both full-service and hybrid models, where operations are supervised by a central location.