Farmbot, way of the future?

The sixth generation Farmbot can process information from 25 different sensors on a farm – and there’s more to come, its developers say

Australian agricultural technology company Farmbot will be able to combine data from its water monitors with data from devices including soil moisture monitors, electric fences, pumps and water tanks with its latest technology.

Company managing director Andrew Coppin says the sixth generation Farmbot will be able to monitor water pressure, flow rates and rainfall, among other variables.

“46 per cent of our customers now have rain gauges attached to the Farmbot,” he says.

“We are monitoring pressure and flow in pipes, doing water quality, electric fence monitoring – by proximity the device can pick up that there is an electric fence near it and make sure the farmer knows the electric fence or the hotwire is charged and is doing what it is meant to be doing.”

The Farmbot features two-way communications, wireless and point to point connectivity, which Coppin says enables it to integrate with other devices being used on the farm.

“Even the most remote farms can benefit from Farmbot as it works anywhere with Satellite/3G/4G/LTE connectivity,” he says.

“Farmers have access to crucial insights about their water and are alerted on their phones, tablets or desktops in near real time by SMS, email and dashboard alerts when they need to know.”

Coppin says that about 80 per cent of the monitoring done by the Farmbot is through satellite connectivity, adding that information is provided in real time, but not constantly transmitted.

Farmbot will support a range of new collaborations and functionality with other technology developers in the year ahead – with the company to focus on monitoring water levels in cotton rows and trenches as well as in livestock feeding, and for grain and sugar growers.

 “People want the ability to take photographs of troughs or tanks or other ecosystems… we have got a whole product roadmap of things we will be doing over the next two years and we will just continue to add other functionality,” Coppin says.