Swimming through the Grains: Robotic Device for the Autonomous Monitoring of Cereal Grains in Long-Term Storage

Estimates place the value of mass and quality losses due to spoilage of grains in long-term storage at ~£10B annually in developed countries alone, making storage the single mid-stream phase in grain production with the highest losses. Pests are to blame, with grain moisture content and temperature being the most significant factors.

Cereal storage sites such as farms, grain merchants, millers and breweries, experience these challenges, which have high cost implications in terms of lost revenue and cost to rectify.

A CROVER is the world's first 'underground drone' and the first small robotic device able to 'swim' through grains stored in bulk, such as in wheat and barley in sheds and silos. The CROVER Grain Storage Monitoring system is intended to improve grain packing and to use on-board sensors to scan the grains and build a full map of conditions within grain bulks. Unlike current grain monitoring solutions that measure only one variable and have limited reach, the CROVER Grain Storage Monitoring system is envisioned to provide real-time data across a range of measurements, initially temperature and moisture, throughout the whole silo. This gives early detection of potential spoilage allowing proactive management to reduce losses and maintain quality.

The project is made possible by a new ground-breaking physical discovery enabling locomotion in bulk solids (e.g. sand, grains, powders) developed by the Founder of the Crover Ltd and covered by a recently granted UK patent. The granular-matter-equivalent of plane or drone wings in air, or a boat's rotor in water, it allows an object to move between solid grains.

The CROVER Grain Storage Monitoring system will be for owners of large farms with silo storage and off-farm grain storage sites seeking to reduce grain wastage, to receive higher premiums from quality stock sale and to strategically plan their business.

The project will focus on advancing the development of the CROVER Grain Storage Monitoring system for monitoring temperature and moisture in grain bulks, with a particular focus on assessing the feasibility of extending of the current CROVER proof-of-concept self-propelling device into a complete system prototype for grain storage monitoring.