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Fieldwork Robotics wins Innovate UK ISCF grant
Fieldwork Robotics wins Innovate UK ISCF grant.
About this update from Frontier Ip Group Plc
[{"type":"text","content":"\n \nRNS Number : 5740U Frontier IP Group plc 01 April 2019 \n\n1 April 2019\n \nFrontier IP Group Plc\n(\"Frontier IP\" or the \"Group\")\n \n \nPortfolio news - Fieldwork Robotics wins £547,250 Innovate UK ISCF grant to accelerate raspberry-picking robot development\n \n \nFrontier IP, a specialist in commercialising university intellectual property, today announces portfolio company Fieldwork Robotics (the \"Company\" or \"Fieldwork\") has won a UK government Innovate UK Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (\"ISCF\") grant to accelerate development of its raspberry-harvesting robot system. \n \nInnovate UK, the UK's innovation agency, has awarded the University of Plymouth spin out grant funding of £547,250 towards a £671,484 project to create a multi-armed mobile robot prototype. The other project partners include the University of Plymouth and the National Physical Laboratory. \n \nFrontier IP holds a 27.5 per cent stake in the Company. Frontier IP provides Fieldwork with support for engineering and software development, fundraising and industry partnerships. The Company was incorporated to develop and commercialise the work of Dr Martin Stoelen, Lecturer in Robotics at the University's School of Computing, Electronics and Mathematics. \n \nThe government grant builds on the industry backing Fieldwork gained in August 2018 through a collaboration agreement with a leading UK soft-fruit grower, Hall Hunter Partnership. Hall Hunter supplies Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Waitrose. \n \nFieldwork is focused initially on raspberries because they are hard to pick. They are more delicate, more easily damaged than other soft fruits, and grow on bushes with complex foliage and berry distribution. Once the system is proved to work with raspberries, then it can be adapted readily for other soft fruits and vegetables.\n \nFarmers around the world are increasingly interested in robot technology to address long-term structural decline in labour, an issue which has been brought into sharper focus in the UK by Brexit. Fieldwork is developing proof-of-concept robots for other crops following interest from leading agribusinesses. \n \nThe Innovate UK ISCF grant is one of several to be awarded to Dr Stoelen's work. A project to develop robot systems to harvest cauli...