Lars Grimstad

About

Lars Grimstad is a pioneering researcher in agricultural robotics, with a career defined by his mission to automate food production and address the labor challenges facing modern farming. Best known for his work on robotic harvesting and modular agricultural platforms, Grimstad has made foundational contributions to one of robotics' most demanding frontiers: operating intelligently in cluttered, unstructured environments like polytunnels and greenhouses. His most celebrated work involves the development of autonomous strawberry-harvesting robots, including a system featuring a novel obstacle-separation algorithm that garnered 417 citations, alongside a cable-driven gripper variant with 266 citations — together representing landmark achievements in soft-fruit automation. Central to much of his research is the Thorvald II platform, a modular and reconfigurable mobile robot he co-developed that has become a widely adopted tool for agricultural applications, accumulating over 160 citations and inspiring derivative work in phenotyping, greenhouse navigation, and field operations. Grimstad has also explored UAVs and robots as plant phenotyping tools, and more recently contributed innovations in surfel-based navigation for uneven terrain. His collective body of work reflects a rare combination of hardware design, systems integration, and real-world field evaluation, making him an influential figure for researchers and engineers working at the intersection of robotics and sustainable agriculture.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   An autonomous strawberry‐harvesting robot: Design, development, integration, and field evaluation

   417 citations · 2019
2. 2
   Development and field evaluation of a strawberry harvesting robot with a cable-driven gripper

   266 citations · 2019
3. 3
   The Thorvald II Agricultural Robotic System

   162 citations · 2017
4. 4
   Thorvald II - a Modular and Re-configurable Agricultural Robot

   73 citations · 2017
5. 5
   Exploring Robots and UAVs as Phenotyping Tools in Plant Breeding

   53 citations · 2017
6. 6
   On the design of a low-cost, light-weight, and highly versatile agricultural robot

   37 citations · 2015
7. 7
   A Novel Autonomous Robot for Greenhouse Applications

   33 citations · 2018
8. 8
   RASberry - Robotic and Autonomous Systems for Berry Production

   22 citations · 2018
9. 9
   Elevation State-Space: Surfel-Based Navigation in Uneven Environments for Mobile Robots

   14 citations · 2022
10. 10
    Software Components of the Thorvald II Modular Robot

    10 citations · 2018

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links