Autonomous driving platform for greenhouses without rail tubes launched

Bogaerts, a Belgian company, has developed an autonomous platform that can navigate greenhouses without heating pipe rails: the Bull-Qii DS. It is suitable for tunnels, plastic-covered greenhouses and glasshouses, and is designed to treat strawberry crops with UV-C light at night.

Inside a dark greenhouse at night, conditions are far from ideal for navigation. There are no pipe rails, the ground is uneven and wet, and a pump sticks out into the path halfway along. Two greenhouse compartments also need to be treated before morning. "Our goal is to give growers a solid, dependable product. Growers have to be able to trust it," says Xante Bogaerts of Bogaerts.

© Bogaerts Greenhouse Logistics

Driving without pipe railIn recent years, Bogaerts has supplied many strawberry growers with the Qii-Drive Shift, which treats plants with UV-C at night, when no staff are in the greenhouse. Growers without pipe rail heating also wanted a way to control powdery mildew autonomously and without chemicals.

To meet this demand, Bogaerts developed a new universal base on which applications such as UV-C can be mounted. "In a greenhouse without pipe rails, you have to navigate in a completely different way, and you need different wheels and drive systems," Xante explains.

The Bull-Qii DS has large wheels, advanced image processing technology and intelligent sensors. The company also paid close attention to weight distribution and steering behavior. "The ground is challenging, but you don't want to compromise on accuracy and reliability," says Xante. "In terms of ease of use and robustness, the Bull-Qii DS is very similar to the Qii-Drive Shift, which runs on pipe rails. Under the hood, however, they are completely different."

© Bogaerts Greenhouse Logistics

Challenging surfacesOne of the biggest development challenges was that greenhouse floors are often far from uniform. "The surface can vary considerably within a greenhouse, and there are often wetter zones," Xante says. Several components were therefore modified during development. A large swivel wheel was replaced with a steered wheel for more precise driving, and a scraper was added to prevent dirt from building up on the steering wheels.

Using a structured, step-by-step approach, Bogaerts developed autonomous driving for a range of conditions, including complete darkness. "By combining advanced image processing and intelligent sensors, the Bull-Qii DS 930 UV-C can now navigate the greenhouse and move between the crops independently, both day and night."

Some layouts add further complications. "For example, there may be a series of pumps and valves to avoid, or two compartments connected by a narrow passage," Xante says. The platform's compact dimensions and free navigation are designed to handle these situations.

The new navigation concept also gives growers more flexibility. With UV-C, the aim is often to treat fixed zones fully every night. During a crop changeover, however, the Bull-Qii DS can start, stop and cross over at other points. "Driving through a door into the next compartment is also standard," Xante says.

© Bogaerts Greenhouse Logistics

Easy to operateBesides high reliability, growers asked for a machine that is easy to operate. "It has to be moved every morning and evening, and of course growers want this to go as smoothly as possible so that staff can do it too," says Xante. The Bull-Qii DS can also be steered with a joystick. "At the starting point, you prepare it with a single push of a button, and at the set time it drives through the greenhouse on its own." The machine's status can be monitored from a personal device.

© Bogaerts Greenhouse Logistics

© Bogaerts Greenhouse Logistics

UV-C demands reliabilityThe Bull-Qii DS can be used for various applications, with UV-C expected to be the most important. "With UV-C, reliability is even more critical," Xante says. "The Bull-Qii DS typically has to drive perfectly six nights a week, so there is little or no margin for error."

This was a serious challenge for an entirely new navigation technology. "It was only possible because of the many tests we ran with different prototypes at different growers, in different conditions," Xante says. "It was a matter of covering as many kilometers as possible and continuously refining where needed."

The UV-C application is aimed at strawberry growers, although Bogaerts has ideas for other uses, both in strawberry cultivation and beyond. The Bull-Qii DS is also designed as a broader universal base. It contains the basic components for manual and autonomous driving and is built to be as compact and low as possible so that different applications can be mounted on it. "The chassis without the UV-C unit could, for example, be used for scouting or for releasing biologicals. We can also supply different battery packs depending on the application and the capacity required," says Xante. "Growers who see opportunities with this autonomous platform are always welcome to contact us."

© Bogaerts Greenhouse Logistics

Bogaerts will be present at ExpoSE in Karlsruhe, Germany, on 18 and 19 November. Meet the team at stand C01.

For more information:

Bogaerts Greenhouse Logistics

Tel.: +32 (0) 38 00 72 31

[email protected]

www.bogaertsgl.com