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44 D riverless cars have been a major focus following the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. New systems for artificial intelligence in cars and the first public autonomous transit system around the streets of the city are demonstrating the advance of technology for unmanned systems. But other areas such as agriculture and mining are also adopting the technology to cut costs and increase safety, and truck and delivery companies are rolling out new ways to handle complex chains of logistics. Agriculture Researchers at the Lincoln Institute for Agri-food Technology, in the UK, are developing an autonomous robot for farming. The Thorvald system, developed with the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, will move around fields to sense crops and soils, measuring fertility and moisture, and then providing that information to farmers so they can increase the precision of their agriculture systems. Prof Simon Pearson at the institute says, “With wheels large enough to run smoothly across fields, grass and muddy terrain, the large square structure [of the Thorvald] will see farmers use robots as carriers and extra manpower in their fields. It could be weeding equipment, spraying equipment – who knows what – but what farmers need is a platform to move across their fields to increase the precision of their agricultural systems.” The robot includes a sensor to measure soil moisture with higher accuracy than current systems. The COSMOS (COsmic-ray Soil Moisture Observing System) sensor, developed by Hydroinnova, counts fast neutrons from cosmic rays that can be converted into Nick Flaherty reports on some of the latest developments in unmanned ground vehicle technology Ear to the ground February/March 2017 | Unmanned Systems Technology The Thorvald agricultural UGV can carry heavy sensors to monitor soil moisture (Courtesy of the University of Lincoln)