Robots in the field: farms embracing autonomous technology

ronjor · Dec 2, 2018

By Kelvin Chan, AP Business Writer EAST MEON, England — Nov 30, 2018

Faced with seesawing commodity prices and the pressure to be more efficient and environmentally friendly, farmer Jamie Butler is trying out a new worker on his 450-acre farm in England's Hampshire countryside.
Methodically inspecting Butler's winter wheat crop for weeds and pests, the laborer doesn't complain or even break a sweat. That's because it's a four-wheel robot dubbed "Tom" that uses GPS, artificial intelligence and smartphone technology to digitally map the field.
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Bill_Bright · Dec 2, 2018

I remember 40 - 45 years ago seeing a documentary on one of those science shows that predicted one day, they would be growing chocolate chip cookies in one big, super super-bowl size indoor farm. A computerized machine would plant 3 rows of wheat, 1 row of sugar cane, 1/2 row of this, 2 rows of that and so on. Computers would provide the exact right amount of water, sun etc. to each plant/ingredient. And come harvest time another big computerized machine would go down the rows, process each ingredient, mix the ingredients in the correct proportions into cookie dough, burn part of the waste (stems and stuff) to fuel the on-board oven, and use the other part of the waste to manufacture the cardboard packaging, including printing with natural vegetable dyes extracted from the plants. Then at the end of row, the machine would spit out cartons of chocolate chip cookies, ready for the market. Pretty cool.

I think the same documentary predicted we would have colonies on the moon by now, but it was still fascinating.

guest · Dec 12, 2018

How self-driving tractors, AI, and precision agriculture will save us from the impending food crisis
December 12, 2018
https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-s...-will-save-us-from-the-impending-food-crisis/

The goal is to use automated driving technology, computer vision, telematics, and cloud-based mobile applications to help farmers double or triple their yields--a feat that will be key to keeping up with global food demands as the Earth's population grows over the next 30 years.
IoT and AI take root
The Internet of Things (IoT) is tangible for today's farmers. The machines farmers employ to traverse their fields are stuffed with sensors and software that gather data, process it with machine learning, and beam it into mobile apps. The sensors are the eyes of the machine. The software and mobile apps bring the data to life.

With AI, John Deere envisions a planter that can be made to understand the ground conditions and alter planting settings automatically.
Problem solving with AI
An AI system can look across a farmer's operations to analyze data on weather, temperature, moisture, and soil composition, and provide insights on how to optimize equipment, improve planning, minimize waste and increase yields.
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ronjor · Jan 14, 2019

Robotic Milkers and an Automated Greenhouse: Inside a High-Tech Small Farm

By Steve Lohr Jan. 13, 2019
BULGER, Pa. — About 150 Jersey cows in the rolling terrain at Rivendale Farms in Bulger, some 25 miles west of Pittsburgh, wear Fitbit-like collars that monitor their movement, eating and rumination patterns. They are milked not by humans but by robotic machines.
Rivendale Farms outside Pittsburgh is a laboratory for applying technology to smaller farms.
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guest · Feb 17, 2019

Robots may run future farms, researchers say
February 14, 2019
https://techxplore.com/news/2019-02-robots-future-farms.html

Now, two University of Florida professors say robots and information technology will rule the roost on farms in the coming years.

"I think we will see the first farm trying to put all this technology together in the next few years," Asseng said.
"We have already become accustomed to the idea of autonomous machinery, like tractors navigating their way up and down a field," said Asseng.

"I think the trend is clearly there since agriculture started and more recently, for example, with bigger and bigger tractors in agriculture to have fewer drivers, a trend we also see in other industries," he said. "It definitely opens up new opportunities for other jobs like developing and maintaining robots, drones, software and more."
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guest · Feb 19, 2019

Monash Uni trials autonomous drones for smart water sensing
Enabling precision farming
February 19, 2019
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/monash-uni-trials-autonomous-drones-for-smart-water-sensing-519499

Engineers from Monash University are developing autonomous drones able to detect moisture hiding just under the surface to help meet our growing demand for food as water sources dwindle.
Walker said the drone is autonomous “in the sense that you mark the paddock you want to fly, it automatically prepares the flight lines...you press the ‘fly’ button, it goes and flies and captures and comes back and lands”.

It’s hoped the increased insights into how water moves through paddocks will allow farmers to optimise crop yields while reducing wastage or overwatering, which can damage the health of plants and lead to increased numbers of pests and diseases.
Autonomous drones also have advantages over satellite imagery or scans conducted by plane or helicopter due to their significantly lower costs and ability to collect more granular data on a regular basis.
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guest · Mar 17, 2019

Self-Driving Tractors Yet to Convince Farmers to Hand Over Keys
March 13, 2019
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-farmers-to-hand-over-keys?srnd=technology-vp

Not all farmers are ready to give up control of their tractors even though fully autonomous technology has arrived.

There’s still work to be done perfecting all functions that have to be automated, meaning fields swarming with self-operating machines are a few years down the road, according to equipment maker AGCO Corp. Chief Operating Officer Eric Hansotia.
“To take the driver out of the vehicle, you have to automate all the functions the farmer does,” Hansotia said in an interview. “So anything a farmer watches or checks, changes or adjusts, it’s what we’re working on.”
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ronjor · Mar 27, 2019

FarmWise turns to Roush to build autonomous vegetable weeders

Matt Burns@mjburnsy 27 Mar 2019
FarmWise wants robots to do the dirty part of farming: weeding. With that thought, the San Francisco-based startup enlisted the help of Michigan-based manufacturing and automotive company Roush to build prototypes of the self-driving robots. An early prototype is pictured above.
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ronjor · Mar 27, 2019

Your Apples May Soon Be Picked By Laser-Shooting Robots

Matt Simon 03.27.19
This is why roboticists are creating crop-specific machines to harvest fruits and veggies. There’s the robot that harvests lettuce with a knife made of water. Now comes the apple-picking robot, a metallic farmer that just graduated from R&D and won a job in a New Zealand orchard. Its deployment may be limited at the moment, sure, but it’s a glimpse at a future in which hyper-specialized robots help feed our growing species.
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ronjor · Apr 10, 2019

The Age of Robot Farmers

By John Seabrook April 8, 2019
Picking strawberries takes speed, stamina, and skill. Can a robot do it?
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guest · May 20, 2019

Robots take the wheel as autonomous farm machines hit fields
Robots are taking over farms faster than anyone saw coming.
May 19, 2019
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/robots-take-the-wheel-as-autonomous-farm-machines-hit-fields/

In Australia, SwarmFarm Robotics is leasing weed-killing robots that can also do tasks like mow and spread. The companies say their machines are smaller and smarter than the gigantic machinery they aim to replace.

But the robots were more precise. They distinguished the dull brown color of the farm’s paddock from green foliage, and targeted chemicals directly at the weeds. It’s a task the farm does two to three times a year over 20,000 acres. With the robots, Bradford said he can save 80% of his chemical costs.
“The savings on chemicals is huge, but there’s also savings for the environment from using less chemicals and you’re also getting a better result in the end,” said Bradford, who’s run the farm for about 10 years.

In Saskatchewan, the first commercially sold autonomous tractors made by Dot are hitting fields this spring.
That will open up a lot of time for the growers who will no longer need to sit behind the steering wheel.
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Bill_Bright · May 20, 2019

I remember seeing a show many (like 50) years ago about the future of farming. The example given was with the end product being chocolate chip cookies!

The computerized equipment would plant so many rows of each of the ingredients in the correct proportions. Everything was timed so all the crops would be ready for harvest at the same time.

When ready, the harvesting equipment would move down the rows, harvesting all the "ingredients" in the correct proportions for the cookie recipe. Parts of the stems and other wastes would burned to heat the on board ovens. The remaining stems would be turned into paper pulp for the packaging and vegetable dyes would be extracted to print the package graphics and labeling. By the time the harvesting cookie making baking machine reached the end of the rows, it would spit out a pallet of ready to eat, boxed chocolate chip cookies ready for market.

I'm still waiting to see that, but it seems we are getting closer and closer - maybe one day with indoor farming.

Krusty · May 20, 2019

Bill_Bright said: ↑

I remember 40 - 45 years ago seeing a documentary on one of those science shows that predicted one day, they would be growing chocolate chip cookies in one big, super super-bowl size indoor farm. A computerized machine would plant 3 rows of wheat, 1 row of sugar cane, 1/2 row of this, 2 rows of that and so on. Computers would provide the exact right amount of water, sun etc. to each plant/ingredient. And come harvest time another big computerized machine would go down the rows, process each ingredient, mix the ingredients in the correct proportions into cookie dough, burn part of the waste (stems and stuff) to fuel the on-board oven, and use the other part of the waste to manufacture the cardboard packaging, including printing with natural vegetable dyes extracted from the plants. Then at the end of row, the machine would spit out cartons of chocolate chip cookies, ready for the market. Pretty cool.

I think the same documentary predicted we would have colonies on the moon by now, but it was still fascinating.
Click to expand...

Bill_Bright said: ↑

I remember seeing a show many (like 50) years ago about the future of farming. The example given was with the end product being chocolate chip cookies!

The computerized equipment would plant so many rows of each of the ingredients in the correct proportions. Everything was timed so all the crops would be ready for harvest at the same time.

When ready, the harvesting equipment would move down the rows, harvesting all the "ingredients" in the correct proportions for the cookie recipe. Parts of the stems and other wastes would burned to heat the on board ovens. The remaining stems would be turned into paper pulp for the packaging and vegetable dyes would be extracted to print the package graphics and labeling. By the time the harvesting cookie making baking machine reached the end of the rows, it would spit out a pallet of ready to eat, boxed chocolate chip cookies ready for market.

I'm still waiting to see that, but it seems we are getting closer and closer - maybe one day with indoor farming.
Click to expand...

Hahahaha.

Bill_Bright · May 20, 2019

Hey - well my memory fluctuates but is pretty constant. Same idea anyway.

guest · May 27, 2019

Robocrop: world's first raspberry-picking robot set to work
Autonomous machine expected to pick more than 25,000 raspberries a day, outpacing human workers
May 26, 2019
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...t-set-to-work-artificial-intelligence-farming

Quivering and hesitant, like a spoon-wielding toddler trying to eat soup without spilling it, the world’s first raspberry-picking robot is attempting to harvest one of the fruits.
After sizing it up for an age, the robot plucks the fruit with its gripping arm and gingerly deposits it into a waiting punnet. The whole process takes about a minute for a single berry.

It seems like heavy going for a robot that cost £700,000 to develop but, if all goes to plan, this is the future of fruit-picking.
The robot has gone on trial in the UK, as the farming industry battles rising labour costs and Brexit-related shortages of seasonal workers.

The final robot version, expected to go into production next year, will have four grippers, all picking simultaneously.
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ronjor · Jun 3, 2019

This startup just raised cash for its robots that help farmers monitor vineyards and crops

by James Thorne on June 3, 2019
For farmers managing thousands of acres, tracking the health of all those plants can be a huge undertaking. Enter Pollen Systems, a Bellevue, Wash.-based startup that’s using drones and robotic scouting vehicles to help farmers better understand their fields. The company recently raised $777,572, according to a regulatory filing.
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ronjor · Jun 20, 2019

Robots are already farming crops inside this Silicon Valley warehouse

By Adele Peters 06.20.19
Indoor farming company Plenty’s new, bigger operation wants to deliver fresh greens, any time of year. And its robot farm workers help it optimize growing conditions to make the most delicious produce.
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guest · Jun 20, 2019

Why Do Visions of Farming’s Future Never Involve Farmers?
June 20, 2019
https://slate.com/technology/2019/0...on-agriculture.html?via=section_recirc_recent

Now the robots are coming for our farms. The Washington Post tells us “farmworkers could be replaced by robots sooner than we think.” The Guardian paints a picture of “space bots with lasers, killing plants.” The New Yorker calls ours the “age of robot farmers,” forecasting that “the future of fruit-and-vegetable farming is automation.”

It’s here and has been for a long time, as so-called robot farming is another way to think about industrial agriculture and its ethos of labor-saving efficiencies.
In 2013, Matthew Yglesias rightly noted that “the use of the word ‘robots’ as a synonym for ‘labor-saving technology’ is a rhetorical trick to make long-standing trends seem new and alarming.”

Robotic farms are a commitment to the further separation of agriculture and humanity, to the detriment of both.
I’d be suspicious of anyone claiming we don’t need to address the demands of farm labor. But the larger issues are what kind of farms we want to have and what food means when it’s divorced from farmers. Resisting the robot invasion is no anti-technology posture, but a petition to engineer our designs on the patterns of healthier land stewardship.
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guest · Jun 23, 2019

This robot ‘duck’ could help Japanese rice farmers keep paddy fields clear of weeds
June 22, 2019
https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2019/6/22/18700480/robot-duck-nissan-rice-fields-farming-weeds

For centuries, rice farmers in Asia have used ducks as a natural alternative to pesticides. While paddling around in flooded paddy fields, ducks tear up weeds and snack on insects, with their manure even acting as additional fertilizer.
An engineer working for Japanese carmaker Nissan has built a robot alternative to paddy field ducks. As reported by Nippon.com and Nerdist, he’s currently testing his prototype in the Yamagata Prefecture in northeastern Japan.

The robot weighs 1.5 kilograms and is about the size of a large robot vacuum cleaner. Two rotating rubber brushes on its underside take the place of a duck’s feet, which oxygenate the water by stirring it up and preventing weeds from taking root.
Still, it’s an adorable robot that manages to blend old and new agricultural techniques.
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guest · Jul 8, 2019

Lettuce-picking robot could plug agriculture labour gaps
July 8, 2019
https://techerati.com/news-hub/lettuce-picking-robot-could-plug-agriculture-labour-gaps/

The prototype Vegebot, developed by a team at Cambridge University, is nowhere near as fast or efficient as a human worker at picking iceberg lettuces.
But research published in The Journal of Field Robotics suggests progress in harvesting the easily-damaged lettuces, which grow relatively flat to the ground, shows the use of robotics in agriculture could be expanded in future.

The Vegebot first identifies the target crop within its field of vision, then determines whether a particular lettuce is healthy and ready to be harvested. Finally, it cuts the lettuce from the rest of the plant without crushing it so that it is “supermarket-ready”.
Co-author Josie Hughes said: “For a human, the entire process takes a couple of seconds, but it’s a really challenging problem for a robot.”

“We’ve still got to speed our Vegebot up to the point where it could compete with a human, but we think robots have lots of potential in agri-tech,” said Ms Hughes.
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ronjor · Dec 21, 2019

Farms turn to technology amid water warnings in Southwest US

By DAN ELLIOTT, Associated Press Aug. 13, 2019
GREELEY, Colo. (AP) — A drone soared over a blazing hot cornfield in northeastern Colorado on a recent morning, snapping images with an infrared camera to help researchers decide how much water they would give the crops the next day.
After a brief, snaking flight above the field, the drone landed and the researchers removed a handful of memory cards. Back at their computers, they analyzed the images for signs the corn was stressed from a lack of water.
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guest · Aug 18, 2019

Drone buzzes above vineyard helping Luxembourg winegrower
August 18, 2019
https://techxplore.com/news/2019-08-drone-vineyard-luxembourg-winegrower.html

Luxembourg wine producer Corinne Kox began trials of the small unmanned aircraft last month over part of her century-old family estate near the borders with France and Germany.
The test drone, guided by a pilot operating a digital control panel on the ground, sprays more accurately and less wastefully than a helicopter which her family sometimes uses, she said

After flying for about five to six minutes, the drone returns to recharge its batteries and refill the plastic tank with 10 litres (2.6 gallons) of fungicide.
It can fly both in automatic mode on a pre-determined route, or be guided by the pilot on the ground.
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guest · Sep 3, 2019

China Drone Attack on Crop-Eating ‘Monster’ Shows 98% Kill Rate
September 2, 2019
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ack-on-crop-eating-monster-shows-98-kill-rate

An army of drones deployed to fight a crop-devouring pest in a southern area of China has recorded a mortality rate of as high as 98%, according to the manufacturer.
The autonomous devices, loaded with low-toxicity insecticide, have also successfully managed the pests in a government-led operation in the southwest province of Yunnan, XAG said.

“It is the ‘crop-devouring monster’ that attacks over 80 crop varieties,” XAG said in a statement Monday.
Drones can safely operate after sunset to kill the pests, which feed most actively at night, XAG said. According to a local media report, drones have also effectively helped to control the spread of the pests found in some cornfields in the northern province of Henan.
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ronjor · Sep 27, 2019

Secretive robotic farming startup led by Islion founder raises $8.9M from Ignition and Bolt

by Taylor Soper on September 27, 2019
In an interview with GeekWire, Mikesell revealed that Maka is building intelligent robots for agriculture-related applications. One of its first devices is an autonomous robot for weed control; the machine can whack weeds without using herbicides or other chemicals — “that’s a really big deal,” Mikesell said.
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guest · Nov 7, 2019

Volocopter and John Deere team up for a crop-spraying autonomous agricultural drone
November 7, 2019
https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/07/v...-crop-spraying-autonomous-agricultural-drone/

Autonomous drone-based transportation startup Volocopter has revealed its first partner for its new VoloDrone industrial and commercial electric vertical take-off and landing craft: John Deere. The agricultural and industrial heavy equipment company is working with Volocopter on a VoloDrone-based aerial crop-dusting system.

John Deere is equipping the VoloDrone with a sprayer and tank array mounted to its cargo connection points, which will be able to dispense pesticides, liquid fertilizer, anti-frost agents for unseasonable inclement weather and more. Both partners also see potential in applications like sowing seeds for new crops from the air.
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