On the National Day of the Great Agricultural Robotics Challenge, held on April 1st in Bordeaux, CTIFL announced the launch of the Agroboscope project. "With Agroboscope, CTIFL is fully committed to structuring an unprecedented system for evaluating agricultural robots. This collaborative project will make it possible to produce reliable and operational references, by closely associating research, experimentation, and the field, at the service of farmers and innovation," explains Marine Louargant, engineer and head of the MATIC unit at CTIFL.
© CTIFL
Agroboscope is a French collaborative project led by CTIFL and co-led by Robagri. It has a budget of €4.9 million [5.7 million USD] (including €3.8 million [4.4 million USD] in aid) and brings together 29 multidisciplinary partners. Over a four-year period (2026-2029), its aim is to set up a permanent network of test platforms and to produce reliable benchmarks for the performance of agricultural robotics solutions.
The project meets a twofold strategic challenge: to provide farmers and public authorities with independent, comparable data to help them make informed choices, and to offer manufacturers a qualified framework for testing, validating, and improving the reliability of their solutions at different levels of technological maturity. Agroboscope is based on the establishment of a national network of test infrastructures required for the development of agricultural robotics. It will help to deploy a large number of trials covering a variety of sectors (field crops, viticulture, arboriculture, vegetable production, livestock farming) and evaluation conditions: controlled environments, experimental platforms, and farms. The trials will be used to feed a national performance benchmark, incorporating technical, economic, and agri-environmental indicators, which will be accessible via open data.
© CTIFLThe TITEC platform at the CTIFL center in Lanxade (24), one of the test areas for the Agroboscope project.
A project at the heart of the Great Agricultural Robotics Challenge
Agroboscope is an integral part of the Great Agricultural Robotics Challenge, coordinated by Robagri, which aims to accelerate the deployment of robotics solutions to support the agro-ecological transition. This national program meets the sector's structuring needs: production of reliable references, a framework for validating technologies, and support in bringing innovation to market. In this context, Agroboscope is making a direct contribution to the development of harmonized evaluation methodologies and to the consolidation of performance data. The project is also closely linked with the Stairs project (Shared Technology Solutions: Impact Analysis, Interoperability and Resources for the Sustainability of Robotic Systems), launched in 2025 and led by INRAE. CTIFL is playing an active role in this project, particularly in the development of experimental protocols and data collection. The complementary nature of Agroboscope and Stairs means that the entire agricultural robotics value chain can be covered, from the standardization of methods to the assessment of environmental impacts, thereby helping to remove the barriers to the adoption of new technology.
CTIFL, a key player in innovation for the fruit and vegetable sector
With Agroboscope, CTIFL is strengthening its position as a key player in supporting technological and agro-ecological change in the fruit and vegetable sector. The institute is mobilizing its expertise in experimentation, performance evaluation, and the dissemination of technical references to meet the needs of growers, equipment manufacturers, and public decision-makers. Its involvement in structuring projects, such as the France 2030 plan with Agroboscope (project reference: ANR-25-GDRA-0002) and Stairs, illustrates its ability to federate innovation ecosystems on a national scale.
RobAgri, co-leader of the project and a key player in agricultural robotics
© CTIFL
RobAgri is an inter-professional association set up to bring together all the players involved in agricultural robotics in France, with over 95 members. Its role is to structure the sector, remove the technological, regulatory, and economic obstacles, and to accelerate the adoption of robotic solutions to support agricultural change. Commissioned in 2023 to lead the Great Agricultural Robotics Challenge as part of the France 2030 program, RobAgri is co-leading the Agroboscope project alongside CTIFL.
For more information:
CTIFL
Jean-Marc Goachet
[email protected]
