INDUSTRY NEWS
LEFT: Costa Brothers’ Michael Costa, AERIUM Analytics Jordan Cicoria and Matthew Holodinsky, with Andy Chambers from AirborneLogic at the ACE Orchard demonstration of RoBird. being put to the test in Australian conditions, one with flapping wings and another with fixed wings, which is able to fly in stronger winds. Mr Cicoria said peregrine falcons are found on all continents except for Antarctica and while Australia’ s predatory birds have been more aggressive towards RoBird it is still having the desired impact on the birds causing crop damage, Growers had the opportunity to view RoBird at demonstrations at the Almond Centre of Excellence in Loxton and at the Agriculture Victoria SmartFarm in Mildura last month. Mr Cicoria said response and feedback has been incredible.“ A lot of farmers are having serious issues and are wondering how this technology is going to be able to hopefully help decrease their loss and get the birds moved on," he said. Mr Cicoria said his company started working on RoBird in 2016. Back then it was Dutch technology and AERIUM Analytics formed a partnership to bring RoBird to Canada to commericialise it. In 2021 AERIUM Analytics took over the worldwide intellectual property. Currently RoBird is launched by hand but the company is continuing to advance the technology and this includes developing a launcher.“ Ultimately we want to get to a fully automated system, however, with regulations with CASA and others there are important steps to be done, so initially we’ ve improved takeoff and landing substantially
AERIUM Analytics’ Matthew Holodinsky discussed RoBird with Steve Lehmann from Elders.
and we’ ve set up tools to be able do that and get it in the air,” Mr Cicoria said.“ Right now the biggest effect is to act as much like a live falcon as possible and that’ s a massive piece." AERIUM Analytics investigating the most effective business model for the commerialisation of RoBird in Austalia. One option would enable growers to fly RoBird themselves and AERIUM Analytics would provide customer support and training. But Mr Cicoria said there’ s also interest in a co-operative model where RoBird would support a region rather than a single farm.“ So what we are trying to do is understand price point, understand damage and cost, understand effective timing to really create the most effective solution that’ s going to work for certain farms that may want service and others that may want to operate it themselves," he said. AERIUM Analytics is eager to have more conversations with growers, especially as they move through the trial over the coming years. Research from this trial will be published by Hort Innovation and shared with the ABA.
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