New labor-saving robot for indoor and outdoor operations
Philadelphia-based Burro, an autonomous mobility company providing solutions for the agriculture industry, announced that it has launched a new product, Burro Grande, the company’s most powerful labor-saving robot to date. In terms of capabilities, Burro Grande expands beyond people scale (500 lb. payload, light-duty towing) to a true pallet-scale vehicle (1,500 lb. payload, 5,000 lb. towing), and features Burro Operation System Software V 5.0 to enable indoor/outdoor LiDAR-based localization for autonomous movement across indoor and outdoor operations.
All electric, the environmentally friendly Burro Grande will carry or tow heavy loads over multiple terrains for up to 15 miles between charges. When paired with the company’s Atlas Mission Autonomy, Burro’s online route creation platform, users can construct, manage and share routes across their fleet. Whether towing, carrying or following, Burro Grande allows your existing equipment operators to step away from the seat of a tractor or UTV, saving valuable labor.
The company was recently honored for the third consecutive year as a 2024 World Ag Expo Top-10 New Product winner for both its Burro Grande and Atlas Mission Autonomy innovations.
“Burro Grande, slated for first deliveries in the spring, will support nursery and greenhouse operators, as well as citrus, stone fruit, table grape, blueberry, caneberry and more. With labor being the #1 challenge facing growers today, growers are in dire need of autonomous solutions to help their businesses survive,” said Burro’s founder and CEO Charlie Anderson. “Releasing this ground-breaking robot to market means that growers have a proven, viable alternative to increasingly expensive and scarce workforce options.”
Burro is the leading plug-and-play autonomous robot available that increases productivity in conventional production environments. It also features patent-pending Pop Up Autonomy, which means the technology works immediately out of the box and empowers users on a job site to be up and running with very little training and can be used across multiple environments. Burro does not require centralized control or installation of burdensome infrastructure. Instead, its robots use computer vision (cameras) and AI to learn and to navigate autonomously from points A to B while carrying loads, as well as mowers and partner technology applications, such as artificial pollinators. Burro is proven to help agricultural clients realize improvements in efficiency by up to 40 percent.
Two significant operational challenges facing the agriculture industry today are an unprecedented shortage of laborers and reliance on conveyor belts, which help to move plants from one site to another or to perform small-batch work. Conveyor belts are heavy, cumbersome and can pose an injury risk to workers during set-up and break-down. All Burro robots mitigate labor shortages by enabling force multiplication of workers and taking on the burden of carrying and towing heavy loads, while also boosting profitability. Burro is one of only a few autonomous robotic solutions available for this purpose. In addition to recently achieving the milestone of having traveled 75,000 autonomous miles, the company also has hundreds of robots actively deployed around the world in support of farms, greenhouses and nurseries.
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