Show HN: Sowbot – open-hardware agricultural robot (ROS2, RTK GPS)

Source: Hacker News

Overview

Sowbot is an open‑hardware agricultural robot designed to close the “prototype gap” that kills most agri‑robotics startups and research projects — the 18+ months spent on drivers, networking, safety watchdogs, and UI before you can even start on the thing you actually care about.

Hardware

• Compute module: Stackable 10 × 10 cm board with two ARM Cortex‑A55 SBCs
  • One SBC runs ROS 2 navigation / EKF localisation.
  • The other SBC is dedicated to vision / YOLO inference.
  • Both are connected via a single Ethernet cable.
• Positioning: Centimetre‑level accuracy using dual RTK GNSS.
• Communication: CAN bus for field communications.
• Motor control: Real‑time control via ESP32 running Lizard firmware.
• Open licences: All schematics, PCB layouts, and firmware are released under open licences.

Software

The software stack can be used with:

• RoSys / Field Friend – for teams that want fast iteration.
• DevKit ROS – for teams already in the ROS ecosystem.

The idea is that a lab in one country can reproduce another lab’s experiment simply by sharing a Docker image.

Current Status

• The Open Core brain is largely fabricated.
• The full‑size Sowbot body has a detailed BOM but is not yet assembled.
• Two smaller development platforms (Mini and Pico) are in various stages of testing.

Contributing

We are a small volunteer team looking for contributors in any area: hardware, ROS, firmware, documentation, etc.

• Discord: https://discord.gg/SvztEBr4KZ – we have a weekly call for anyone who wants to join the conversation.
• GitHub: https://github.com/Agroecology-Lab/feldfreund_devkit_ros/tre…

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Show HN – points: 13.

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Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47123894

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