Based in Barcelona – Spain and born from a European Union funded research project, Farm Automation and Robotics SL (‘Faromatics‘) is the developer of an award winning poultry monitoring robot known as ‘ChickenBoy’. Now, after five years of development, global agricultural machinery giants AGCO have acquired the firm.
ChickenBoy is the world’s first ceiling-suspended poultry monitoring robot, helping farmers to improve animal welfare and farm productivity. The rail-mounted robot uses a complete set of sensors to measure thermal sensation, air quality, light and sound in poultry housing.
It also uses artificial intelligence (AI) to identify risks to broiler chicken health, welfare and also farm equipment. Farmers, vets and stock persons interact with ChickenBoy through mobile alerts or through Faromatics’ own cloud platform.
The team at Faromatics consists of twenty highly qualified experts in precision farming, instrumentation and animal health, with 2 PhD, 13 MSc or MSc students, 4 BSc and 4 other degrees between them.
“We have now reached a moment where the combination of great technology with global market reach has the potential to make a lasting impact on animal welfare and farm productivity,” said Dr. Heiner Lehr, CEO of Faromatics. “We are very excited to be joining the AGCO team.”
“This Faromatics acquisition supports our vision of being farmers’ most trusted partner for industry-leading, smart farming solutions across every area of our business,” said Eric Hansotia, AGCO’s Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. “We’re excited to create smart technology solutions for livestock producers, strengthen our existing capabilities, and accelerate innovation that helps our customers increase profitability while improving animal welfare.”
