Stellenbosch University described a prototype vineyard robot developed in collaboration with South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. Called Dassie, the platform travels along vineyard work rows while carrying sensors to collect information about the vines it passes.
The June 2024 feature places the robot within digital-agriculture work coordinated by Professor Carlos Poblete-Echeverría. The collected information can support assessment of canopy growth and local temperature and humidity around leaves and grape bunches. The wider research also considers cameras, spectral imaging and other observation platforms. Dassie was presented as a prototype for gathering vineyard information, not as a commercial machine with demonstrated yield or labour savings across the South African wine industry.
