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Agronomic opportunities highlighted by the Hands Free Hectare and
Hands Free Farm autonomous farming projects
Kit Franklin
Harper Adams University, Shropshire, Newport, TF10 8NB, UK
Abstract
With agriculture facing various challenges including population increase, urbanisation and both
mitigating and managing climate change, agricultural automation and robotics have long been
seen as potential solutions beyond precision farming. The Hands Free Hectare (HFH) and Hands
Free Farm (HFF) collaborative projects based at Harper Adams University (HAU) have been
developing autonomous farming systems since 2016 and have conducted multiple autonomous
field crop production cycles since a world first in 2017. Noted as a milestone in the advancement
of precision agriculture there are many lessons to be shared from the HFH field work which has
shown the technical possibility of conducting crop production with small-scale autonomous
agricultural machines. These small-scale lighter machines have been hypothesized to improve
soil health by reducing compaction therefore, improving yields and reducing farm energy
requirement by reducing need for compaction mitigation tillage, as well as enabling increased
resolution precision farming. The Hands Free Hectare Linear Programming (HFH-LP) model has
been developed based upon the HFH experience to calculate the economics of small-scale
autonomous crop production which has shown favorable cost of production in the order of £30/T
of wheat using the HFH system over the conventional systems due in part to reduced labor
requirement and capital costs.
Further consideration of the HFH/HFF system performance and scale has highlighted a potential
for autonomous machines within agro-ecology regenerative cropping systems. Agronomic and
sustainability benefits are widely hypothesized regarding agro-ecology in any one of its forms,
companion/strip/pixel cropping, whereby synergy between multiple crop species grown in
conjunction could reduce the requirement for crop protection products and additional nutrition.
Conventional mechanisation of multiple cropping agro-ecology systems is prohibitively
expensive due to the scales and logistics involved. Pixel type cropping ‘Agbots’ have been
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proposed, but implementation faces engineering challenges due to the differing agronomic needs
of the crops involved. The HFH/HFF small-scale autonomous machines lend themselves to strip
cropping at 2m row widths immediately. The HFH/HFF system is capable of establishing and
then repeatedly return to individual crop rows, including at harvest, within a multiple cash crop
field by having routing plans for each crop to call upon. Individual nozzle control on the HFF
crop sprayer can already apply to 2m strips from a standardised set of tramlines. Autonomous
crop robot technology in the form of the HFH/HFF system could enable a move to agro-ecology
strip cropping improving in-field biodiversity and agronomic performance as the farming sector
moves to improve sustainability.
Keywords
Autonomous crop robots; Hands Free Hectare; Equipment performance; Profitability;
Commodity crop production; Agro-ecology
Corresponding author and Presenter’s Profile
Kit Franklin is Senior Lecturer of Agricultural Engineering and the Principal Investigator of the
Hands Free Farm at Harper Adams University, Newport, Shropshire, UK. Kit Franklin is a Vice
President of the Institution of Agricultural Engineers (IAgrE) and cochair of the IAgrE’s robotics
special interest group. Kit Franklin’s research interests are in agricultural machinery
development and the adoption novel technologies to improve the sustainability of farming
systems. For future correspondence, please reach at: kfranklin@harper-adams.ac.uk
An Innovate UK funded collaborative feasibility
study between:
Current aims of agriculture
•To feed a growing population with reducing resources
•Improve sustainability: reduced waste & increase efficiency
•Adopt Precision Farming management methods: 4x Rights
Data Source: Our World in Data
Agricultural problems
Reduced rural labour =ever larger machines
Limited time windows =ever larger machines
One-upmanship = ever larger machines
Lack of resolution for PF cause large machines
Compaction limiting yield cause large machines
Small robot paradigm - the future?
Increased resolution = improved PF = margin gain?
Reduced compaction (tackle cause) = increase yield?
Robots operate in “swarms” = same area covered
Swarm requires management = job retained
Small vehicles are intrinsically safer
Future plant scale robotic
management
40hp scale farming
A first step to field robotics
Over a 150 times reduction
Energy implication???
1875 tonne/ha to 11.27 tonne/ha
“Automated machines growing the first
arable crop remotely, without operators in the
driving seats or agronomists on the ground”
Project objective
1. World first automated field growing cycle: drilling,
husbandry/agronomy and harvest
2. Challenge perception of automation capability and
inspire through media coverage
3. Utilising machinery and technologies that are available
and affordable not bespoke and expensive:
Commercial compact Ag machinery
“Open source” automation
Hands Free Hectare –world first
Level ground
No people
No obstacles
Hands free hectare - video
1. Integrated autonomous working –Skunkworks
2. Weekly progress and planning meeting
3. Time and reputation pressure
Hands Free Hectare –collaborate successfully
HFH2 AHDB funding –Autonomy improvements
HFH2 AHDB funding –Autonomy improvements
2017 2018
Rolling Team –unload on the move?
Oct-Mar Rain 117/160 days
14th of March
Implication –Cheaper precision farming tech
Output –HFH Linear Programming Farm Model
•HFH autonomous equipment (28kW tractor), 10%
supervisor intervention
•HFH sized conventional equipment (28kW tractor)
•Medium conventional equipment (112kW tractor)
•Large conventional equipment (221kW tractor)
Economics of autonomous
equipment for arable farms
James Lowenberg-DeBoer, Kit Franklin, Karl Behrendt &
Richard Godwin
Hands Free Farm –winter crop establishment
Hands Free Farm –Wheat Harvest
Autonomous –Agroecology
•Crop diversification through
companion, pixel or strip cropping
•Agronomic and sustainability benefits
are widely hypothesized
•Conventional mechanisation is
prohibitive of multiple cropping
agroecology systems
• Pixel type cropping ‘Agbots’ have been
proposed, but implementation faces
engineering challenges Source: Ditzler and Driessen, 2022 –Wageningen workshop 2019
Hands Free Farm
Hands Free Farm –Route planning/accuracy
Hands Free Farm –Strip cropping potential
Full CTF
Harvest at 2m
Drill at 2m
Spray at
15m
0.9m wheel coverage per drill width
48% ground covered
Beans Barley
Wheat Beans Barley
Herbal
mix Wheat
For future updates and developments
Hands Free Hectare
Hands Free Hectare
www.handsfreehectare.com
Principal Investigator: Kit Franklin
kfranklin@harper-adams.ac.uk
@AgEngResearch & @freehectare
Hands Free Hectare
Hands Free Hectare