The initial MARS (Mobile Agricultural Robot Swarms) field robot research project took second prize in the 2018 technology transfer awards at the Finnish organised European Robotic Forum. As part of this annual event, a jury rewards European robot technology innovation resulting from successful cooperation between research and industry.
AGCO/Fendt launched the EU funded MARS project in cooperation with the Ulm University of Applied Sciences. When the three-year project ended, Fendt continued to research and develop the robot under the name of Xaver, a model of which was on show at the 2017 Agritechnica. The idea is to use small 50kg battery-powered robots operating in swarms and using a cloud-based solution to plan, monitor and accurately document maize planting.
