FEROX: Fostering and Enabling AI, Data and Robotics Technologies for Supporting Human Workers in Harvesting Wild Food

The FEROX project aims to utilise advances in AI, data, and robotics to help the work of wild berry pickers and make the picking process more effective.

Dates1 September 2022 to 31 August 2025
SponsorHorizon Europe: HORIZON-CL4-2021-DIGITAL-EMERGING-01, Project ID: 101070440
Funded€2.746.950
PartnersFondazione Bruno Kessler, Italy: Tampere University, Finland; Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, Spain; Ingeniarius, Portugal; Finnish Geospatial Research Institute, Finland; Deep Forestry, Sweden; Sparkd AI, Ireland; Arktiset Aromit, Finland

The project will employ autonomous drones equipped with various sensors to acquire data, build 3D models of the forests and thereby accurately estimate berries’ locations, amount, and types. The collected data will be used to build AI models to help workers locate the berries and optimise their operations. In addition, FEROX will provide wild berry pickers with navigation and locating services and physical support to improve their working conditions and boost their trust and confidence. Within this 3-year Horizon Europe funded project, Cranfield University will conduct human analysis, with the aim of measuring the impact of the technology on workers. We will concentrate on investigating the current manual work processes and work conditions of berry pickers, user requirements, socio-ethical analysis, and user acceptance evaluation.