Robots to Help Farmers

Roland Piquepaille writes "Robots designed to help farmers have been built before, but this time, engineers from the University of Warwick have chosen to develop robots that will reduce farm labor costs. In recent months, they've built a robotic mushroom picker, an inflatable conveyor belt and a grass cutting robot that might also be used by golf course owners."

Comments

Re:Or you know...

[Dr. Eggman]

Well, we have machines that create soy milk from soy beans, with a little work I bet we could build a machine to create synthetic cow-like milk...

Plus, the machines will not leave little hills to hit your golf ball onto (you have to play it where it lands, thats the rule!) or stamp the ground flat with their massive weight. Of course, a golf course is massive, so your going to need a lot of cows to cut it down in a reasonable amount of time. Their not the fastest creatures either, so expect them to be out there practically all the time; Of course golf players will need to play through which will slow the cows down even more since PETA would never allow Cows to be hit by golf balls. Lastly, its unlikly you could teach a cow that certain areas must have different levels of grass.

Tip of the iceburg

[Locke2005]

I've always thought the perfect application for robots was in pest control. Let loose thosands of small robots into the fields programmed to search out and destroy mice, harmful insects, crows, etc., and you eliminate the need for insecticides. Sort of the high-tech way to do organic farming. You could also train them to spot plant diseases, and quarantine any plants that show symptoms before they spread to other plants. Yes, this requires several magnitudes of cost reduction before it becomes feasible, but it is going to happen eventually.

There's not much left for the robots to do

[Phat_Tony]

In most modern American agribusiness, there's not much left for robots to do. Tilling, planting, harvesting, and all aspects of milling the final product are already mechanized. Even driving the tractor/combine is automated in many cases now- combines and such are often piloted by GPS.

It's true there are still labor-intensive things like fruit picking where advanced robots may one day replace illegal immigrants, but a lot of agriculture already takes place with a bare minimum of human involvement to farm hundreds of thousands of acres of prime crops like corn, wheat, and soybeans.

Re:Will this be like Hybrid cars?

[clockmaker]

Wrong. You should see the prices on tractors these days. Some of the larger ones are USD$250,000 or more. They come with options like LAAS GPS, radar, and laser-guided leveling to keep the rows straight and evenly spaced. The cabs are outfitted with laptops with wifi so the farmers can contact suppliers/buyers instantly as needed. There is big money in farm equipment, and the stereotype of the country bumpkin farmer is plain false. And don't forget, in the US, farming is moving to large "factory" corporate farms. Some of the equipment is already very close to "robotic."