How a robot clears hemp bales from a field

After baling, a field of hemp stalks is dotted with large bales that must be gathered before they soak up moisture or block the next field operation. An autonomous handler follows a GPS route planned from the mapped bale positions, clamps each bale, carries it to a stack at the field edge and sets it on the right tier. The total time is mostly driving plus a fixed amount of handling per bale.

Controls

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Animation speed

Bales per acre

Field size

Stack height

Step through it

Map the balesThe baler or a drone logs where every bale landed. Planning software turns those points into a GPS route that visits them in an efficient order.
Know where it isA satellite antenna on the handler, corrected by a base station at the field edge, gives positions to within a few centimeters. A forward sensor watches for people, animals and obstacles.
Clamp and carrySide clamps squeeze the bale and lift it clear of the stubble. The handler carries bales to the stack instead of leaving them where they fell.
Build the stackBales go down in tiers on a two by four footprint at the field edge. Taller stacks mean fewer stacks, but each higher tier takes a little longer to place.
A big, dense fieldSet 6 bales per acre on 160 acres. Nearly a thousand bales and long drives push the job past two days of running time.

The time model

Total time is driving plus handling. This model assumes the handler carries two bales per trip to a stack site at the middle of one field edge. For a square field of side L, the average straight line distance from a random point to that spot is about 0.59 L, so each round trip is about 1.18 L plus the hop between two neighboring bales (the square root of the area each bale occupies). Average speed is fixed at 12 km/h.

Handling adds 60 seconds per bale to grip, lift and set it down, plus 5 seconds for each tier above the ground. These are teaching values, simplified for the model, not a rating for any machine.

Try it: hold 3 bales per acre and raise the field from 10 to 160 acres. Total bales grow 16 times, but hours grow even faster because every trip gets longer, and the share of time spent driving climbs.

Why fiber bales get moved fast

Extension specialists report that bales left in the field lose quality and can lose a measurable share of their weight before they reach storage, and that moving them promptly reduces waste. Researchers have also shown that planning the collection route from mapped bale positions cuts the non working distance a collector drives.

For hemp grown for fiber, dry and clean stalks matter to the mill, so the same logistics questions apply.

Where Avid uses this

Avid works on agricultural robotics, the field that autonomous logistics machines like this bale handler come from.

Sources

Management Tips for Round Bale Hay Harvesting, Moving, and StorageVirginia Cooperative Extension, Virginia Tech
A System for Optimizing the Process of Straw Bale RetrievalSustainability (MDPI, open access), Aarhus University
Multi-Bale Handling Unit for Efficient LogisticsAgriEngineering (MDPI, open access), Virginia Tech

How to cite this model

Avid Solutions International. (2026, November 11). How a robot clears hemp bales from a field [Interactive 3D model]. Avid Field Lab. https://avidsolutionsintl.com/explore/robotic-bale-handler

Last updated November 11, 2026

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