---
title: "Kansroo"
description: "Kansroo (Yanmar, 2019/20): A small robot drives the furrows, checks crops and reports to the farmer's phone"
url: "https://www.sugar-network.org/en/projects/kansroo-2019-20/"
lang: "en"
---

# Kansroo

**A small robot drives the furrows, checks crops and reports to the farmer's phone**

_Improving the productivity of small-scale, multi-variety farmers_

- **Corporate partner:** [Yanmar](https://www.sugar-network.org/en/network/partners/yanmar/) (https://www.yanmar.com/)
- **Cohort:** [2019/20](https://www.sugar-network.org/en/projects/cohort/2019-20/)
- **Theme:** [Food & farming](https://www.sugar-network.org/en/projects/themes/food-farming/)
- **Type:** Physical product
- **Key fact:** Up to 50 Crop types a target farmer grows
- **Universities:** [Design Factory Melbourne · Swinburne](https://www.sugar-network.org/en/network/universities/dfm/), [Kyoto Institute of Technology](https://www.sugar-network.org/en/network/universities/kyoto-it/), [Kansai University](https://www.sugar-network.org/en/network/universities/kansai/)
- **Team:** 7 master students
- **Disciplines:** Architecture and Space Design, Business, Communication Design, Electronic Engineering, Industrial Design, Informatics

## Challenge

Yanmar asked the team to help small-scale, multi-variety farmers: up to 50 crop types, fewer than five colleagues and under ten hectares. They must monitor crops and manage tasks with very little time.

## What the team learned

Farmers travel between plots, and each crop's needs shift with weather and season. Their knowledge lives in their heads, so they cannot delegate easily or spot patterns across seasons.

## What they built

Kansroo is an autonomous all-terrain vehicle that drives through furrows. It monitors crops with a camera, tests soil moisture and temperature and carries a weather station. It returns to its charging dock and sends data to an app for scheduling tasks.

## Impact

The team's vision is to add machine learning that predicts needs and to pool data that guides farming practice and informs service and product providers.

## Full project text

A multi-channel system designed to increase the production efficiency and productivity of small-scale, multi-variety farmers.

### Challenge

To identify problems that small-scale multi-variety farmers’ experience, and develop an innovative user-centred solution that reduces pain points to ensure efficient farming practices and maximising farmers’ productivity.

### Solution

An autonomous mobile field robot that monitors and analyses crop health and farming conditions via cameras and sensors to formulate digestible information for farmers via application. The application allows farmers to observe their crops and informative data, schedule tasks, weather forecasting and check previous data to recognise patterns and the effect that their farming actions have on crops.

### Impact

Precise data allows farmers’ to make smarter farming decisions to improve crop health and maximise yields. Autonomous vehicle ensures farmers’ can maximise land and time management and can boost overall productivity. Application allows farmers’ to set task and build schedules to ensure they can improve efficient.

## Who built it.

- Liam Tai Olynyk, Business (Design Factory Melbourne · Swinburne)
- Josh Bragagnolo, Industrial Design (Design Factory Melbourne · Swinburne)
- Natasha Miles, Communication Design (Design Factory Melbourne · Swinburne)
- Akimi Ono, Architecture (Kyoto Institute of Technology)
- Hikaru Inoue, Informatics (Kansai University)
- Masaya Kibayashi, Space Design (Kyoto Institute of Technology)
- Yuki Tamiya, Electronic engineering (Kyoto Institute of Technology)

## Video

- Kansroo: https://vimeo.com/425019544

## Sources

Summarised by the SUGAR editorial team from the team’s project page and SUGAR Expo booklet.

Open the 2019/20 booklet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HRinlCvEZz5PSpew8VDcZzSIFRCUEvxc/view?usp=sharing