Cereals 2026: Robodog aims to be agronomists’ new best friend

Meet robodog: a robotic four-legged field companion designed to deliver real-time, leaf-level insights into crop health.

Developed through a collaboration between Syngenta and the University of Nottingham, the technology combines robotics, high-resolution imaging and artificial intelligence to bring crop monitoring down to ground level.

Rob Lind, Syngenta fellow for computer vision and artificial intelligence, explains how the robot is designed to move through crops without damaging plants or disturbing soil structure.

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Robodog has the potential to reduce reliance on manual crop walking and focus attention where it is most needed.

“The technology is currently being used in Syngenta trial sites, helping triallists with plant and head counts and monitor crop health.

“Going forward, I really see potential for agronomists using the robodog as a field scout, similar to how we use drone technology currently,” says Rob.

Rob Lind at Cereals © MAG/Emma Gillbard

Equipped with high-quality depth cameras, it captures 3D images of plants.

A powerful onboard graphical processing unit processes this imagery in real time, running computer models that detect weeds and other crop threats in the field.

Faster detection, smarter decisions

With a battery life of up to four hours, it can cover meaningful ground, while gathering continuous streams of data.

The earlier weeds, pests or disease pressures are identified, the more effectively they can be managed.

“It’s really exciting, working in this space, having new ways to visualise cropping systems through the robodog platform,” says Rob.

While still in development, the potential applications extend beyond crop protection, with scope for yield assessment and variety testing.

The platform is positioned as a complement to existing precision agriculture tools rather than a replacement. For now, robodog remains an emerging innovation.