The new TED agriculture robot is designed to monitor and maintain vineyard grapes. | Image credit: Naio Technologies
Naïo Technologies, a French developer of autonomous Ag robots, just celebrated its 10th anniversary and 60,000 hours of in-field operations. The company is scaling up the development of the all-electric TED agriculture robot and expanding operations with this vehicle into North America.
The TED robot has been name a CES 2022 Innovation Awards honoree in the Robotics category. The company and robot will be on display at the CES 2022 event in Las Vegas in January, 2022.
Naïo Technologies has been active in the United States since 2019 with Dino, its mechanical weeding robot for vegetables. The company is now taking things to the next level and CES 2022 will provide a showcase for its international opening.
“Labor issues and the need to reduce the use of pesticides are global challenges”, explains Ingrid Sarlandie, COO for Naïo Technologies. “With its autonomous agricultural robots Oz, Dino and Ted, Naïo address these issues to ensure a sustainable agricultural production in phase with people and the environment”.
The TED solution will be commissioned and will run demos using a RaaS – Robot as a Service – business model for new customers in California. RaaS will allow wine-growers to enjoy economic benefits while quickly addressing the labor shortage they face, and it is a strong market demand.
The Naio Technologies TED agriculture robot is designed specifically to manage grape vines in a commercial vineyard. | Image credit: Naio Technologies
“In France, TED is already at work for big brands such as Hennessy and Grands Chais de France”, said Julien Laffont, Strategy and Development Manager at Naïo Technologies. “We have acquired a great deal of expertise on American soil with Dino: now that we have eight robots in service and over 5,000 hectares weeded, it is time for Naïo to expand its presence in the United States on the wine-growing market with TED, but also with our historical robot Oz which is about to become available throughout the United States thanks to a distribution network that is currently being deployed”.
Naïo opened a USA office in Salinas CA with a team of 14 people. Salinas is located in the heart of agriculture in Northern California, but the team is supporting customers throughout California all the way down to Arizona. It is also close to the winemaking regions along the central California coast and northern California. The company will continue to hire employees in the Salinas office to meet the growing demand.
The company will display its solutions at CES 2022 in Las Vegas, with this event being the official launch of operations in North America. Come and meet the Naïo Technologies team under the pavilion of the Occitanie Region, booth number 60415-20.
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