On January 27 and 28, 2026, the FRUCTHOR-IA project consortium (ref. S2/1.1/E0170) met in Périgueux, in the Dordogne region, for a coordination meeting focused on the technical assessment and alignment of the next execution milestones, including the preparation and scheduling of pilot projects to be developed in Portugal, Spain, and France.
During the meeting, the Associação de Municípios da Cova da Beira, the project’s Portuguese partner, presented the Communication Strategy, defining the approach for dissemination and stakeholder engagement (growers, public entities, innovation ecosystems, and citizens), with a focus on real-world demonstration and knowledge transfer to the fruit and vegetable sector.
The meeting also included a status update from the partners, consolidating the link between technological development and field validation: the solutions are based on autonomous robotics, computer vision, and artificial intelligence, with specific attention to adaptability to different crops, terrain conditions, and operational requirements, ensuring robustness and viability in pilot trials.
In terms of work organization, FRUCTHOR-IA is moving forward in parallel on identifying and prioritizing the sector’s automation needs, developing and integrating robotic solutions (including crop monitoring and human-robot collaborative work), validating and demonstrating at pilot scale across various territories, and finally, transferring results to the productive fabric. This is supported by capacity-building actions and a financial acceptability/viability strategy exploring shared investment models and mutualization between compatible farms.
The success of this meeting consolidates FRUCTHOR-IA’s path toward applied horticultural innovation. We invite you to closely follow our progress and accompany this technological evolution, designed to offer real and sustainable solutions to producers in the SUDOE area.
This project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Interreg SUDOE Programme.