By Nina Hermansen
In Denmark the area under extensive farming covers more than 150,000 ha, and especially grass from wetland areas has been highlighted as an obvious source of biomass. However, access to the grass can often be difficult: The soil is too wet, areas often impassable and the machinery too large.
This was the background for the now completed project Grassbots, for which the aim was to develop solutions to recover more biomass from wetland areas. The company Kongskilde was the project manager, while other partners included Lynex, Conpleks Innovation, Aarhus University, University of Southern Denmark, Bertelsen Design and Agro Business Park.
By utilizing components that are largely already on the market, the project developed a lightweight machine for the harvesting of grass in wet areas.
- Basically we are talking about a paradigm shift in the machine industry. We must change our mentality from thinking that machines need to be large and heavy to thinking that they can be both small and productive by having multiple machines running at the same time, says project partner Claus Mortensen from Agro Business Park, and explains that a very special thing about the Grassbots is that the machine is running autonomously via a route map.
This means you can have multiple units running at the same time, with still only one person needing to be present. At the same time you can save fuel because the machine can calculate the smartest route.
- We would really like to see some more new products within this platform, and we'd love to help develop the market so that we get smaller and more effective machines. Grassbots should be regarded as a platform that anybody can help to develop further.
