Autonomous Citrus Harvesting Robotbroad
Nanovel · Horizon Europe grant · 2026-03-01–2028-02-29
EC contribution
Total cost
Beneficiaries
About the data
Source: CORDIS (official EU open data), Horizon Europe. Framework HORIZON · call HORIZON-EIC-2025-ACCELERATOR-02 · scheme HORIZON-EIC-ACC · topic HORIZON-EIC-2025-ACCELERATOR-02-OPEN-01. CORDIS record →
Objective
Nanovel is addressing agriculture's labour crisis with AI-powered autonomous citrus harvesting robots, delivering 16-hour daily operation across 9+ month harvest seasons while reducing costs through progressive technology advancement. With the EU agricultural workforce declining 30% since 2003, farm wages rising 16% annually (vs 5% non-farm), and manual harvesting representing 50% of citrus production costs, orange & lemon growers struggle with escalating expenses and workforce unreliability.Our robots exploit breakthrough ""Grip & Trim"" technology, delivering precision stem cuts without fruit damage. Unlike traditional automation limited to juice production, our AI-vision systems navigate dense citrus canopies to selectively harvest fresh-market quality fruit with 90-95% removal efficiency. Gen-1 reduces costs from €37.20 to €25.10 per bin, while Gen-2 achieves 1.68 bins/hr productivity (33% improvement over Gen-1's 1.26 bins/hr) for superior customer economics. Our TRL 6 validation includes Spanish deployment with upcoming pilot partnerships confirmed with Bollo Natural Fruit (Spain), Mehadrin (Israel), and O.P. Coppi (Italy).EIC funding is crucial to Nanovel's strategic scaling because it will:• Advance our technology from TRL 6 to TRL 8 through European field demonstrations in Spain, Israel and Italy, validating Gen-2 autonomous navigation for commercial deployment.• De-risk technology for strategic partners by demonstrating cost-effective integration, enabling rapid market penetration across Europe's citrus regions.• Validate Gen-2's enhanced productivity creating superior customer economics and faster payback periods.• Secure commercial manufacturing partnerships enabling scalable production for market launch.Nanovel's direct-sales model accelerates market capture by serving large-scale growers (400+ hectares). By 2030, we project deploying 200 Gen-2 robots across target regions, generating €57.9M revenues, the equivalent of 20+ large citrus operations.""
Beneficiaries (1)
| Organisation | Country | Role | EC contribution | SME |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NANOVEL LTD | IL | coordinator | €2,499,999 | Yes |
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