We are delighted to announce that our ROBO✶CROPS: Plant Selection, Beyond the Visible exhibit has been awarded an RHS Silver-Gilt Medal at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026, the second highest honour awarded by the Royal Horticultural Society.

The medal was awarded to the University of Lincoln Institute for Agri-Food Technology (LIAT) in recognition of the exhibit’s ambition, innovation, and contribution to horticultural science, a fantastic achievement for our joint L-CAS and LIAT team.

What is PhenAIx?

PhenAIx is our robotic plant phenotyping system, developed at the University of Lincoln through a collaboration of crop, AI and robotics scientists. Phenotyping is the process of identifying and measuring observable characteristics of a plant; traits that reflect its genetic make-up and are used by plant breeders, agronomists and gardeners to select varieties for high yield, disease resilience, or aesthetic qualities such as vibrant colouring.

Our unique robot-in-a-box design centres on a Universal Robots UR3e robotic arm, fitted with two specialist sensors:

• A RealSense D405 RGB+depth camera for precise 3D point-cloud modelling of plant structure.
• A MicaSense RedEdge-MX multi-spectral camera capturing Blue, Green, Red, Red Edge and Near-Infrared (NIR) wavelengths, going beyond what the human eye can see.

As a plant rotates on a motorised pedestal, PhenAIx autonomously scans it from all angles, measuring key traits including:

• Leaf count — using trained AI and computer vision models
• 3D plant architecture — via point-cloud depth sensing
• Spectral health indices — including NDVI (Normalised Difference Vegetation Index), Near-Infrared reflectance, and Red Edge chlorophyll concentration, providing early warning of plant stress before it is visible to the naked eye

PhenAIx demonstrates something important: robots and AI do not replace human expertise, they extend it. The system captures and quantifies what people cannot, freeing plant scientists to focus on interpretation and decision-making rather than repetitive measurement.

The Chelsea Exhibit

At Chelsea 2026, PhenAIx was presented as part of a wider glasshouse exhibit built around sustainability. The wooden planter was constructed from recycled scaffolding boards; the greenhouse structure was kindly built by CambridgeHOK using materials recovered from other projects; and all printed materials were produced on FSC-certified recycled paper.

The plants on display were carefully chosen to showcase the breadth of PhenAIx’s application — from ornamental species including Agapanthus praecox (kindly supplied by Pinnacle Plants International), to food crops including strawberries and tomatoes grown in the University of Lincoln’s geothermal glasshouse — the first research-focused facility of its kind in the UK.

Our Team

This achievement reflects the work of an exceptional, multidisciplinary team from across LIAT and L-CAS, including roboticists, plant scientists, PhD students, post-doctoral researchers and professional services staff.

Full team profiles are available on the PhenAIx event page.

Acknowledgements

PhenAIx and our Chelsea exhibit were made possible by the generous support of our sponsors:

• EPSRC
• Universal Robots
• Pinnacle Plants International
• CambridgeHOK
• University of Lincoln
• EPSRC AgriFoRwArds CDT
• UKRI SUSTAIN CDT

Find Out More

Full exhibit details: lcas.lincoln.ac.uk/wp/events/phenaix-at-chelsea-flower-show/

Enquiries: liatinfo@lincoln.ac.uk

For further information about our research in agricultural robotics and AI, visit the Lincoln Centre for Autonomous Systems and the Lincoln Institute of Agri-food Technology.