What you need to know about the robots that feed humanity

In Iowa, there’s a 3,000-acre farm that uses machines to accomplish most tasks, from seeding to fertilizing and chemical application. This land, owned by the Mitchell family, is known as one of the most mechanized farms in the United States, and it’s far from being unique. The Mitchells and their equally high-tech neighbors are some of the top corn producers in the US, thanks to their machines. But more and more farmers in the country are also turning to agricultural robots, as laborers start dwindling in number and demands for crops and produce continue to grow. After all, they need all the help they can get to feed millions of people, since it’s just not feasible to farm by hand anymore as it was a hundred years ago. Seeing as the US population has grown by 22.5 percent between 1990 (253,339,000) and 2010 (310,384,000), and the Census Bureau expects it to balloon to 420,080,587 in 2050, you can expect to see more robots doing the dirty work on more American farms.

The Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, divides agricultural robots into three generations. The first gen is comprised of basic ones that can collect data, while the second-gen bots are capable of harvesting, seeding, spraying and cultivating. Finally, the third and most advanced generation is comprised of autonomous robots capable of caring for plants without (or with minimal) human intervention. As you can see below, American farms already use machines from across three generations, though most of the ones that fall under the third are still in development.

CURRENT AND UPCOMING ROBOTS ON AMERICAN FARMS

Some of the most well-known farming robots out there are shake-and-catch machines for oranges and other citruses, which literally shake trees side to side and up and down to harvest fruits. Obviously, they can collect fruits more quickly and efficiently than humans can, allowing farmers to plant more trees and increase their output. According to the University of Florida, a particular type of shake-and-catch machine being used to harvest oranges in the state can fill 100 boxes with fruits per hour per crew member. There are apple harvesters currently in development as well, but they’re much harder to design, since apples get bruised and damaged easily.

Earlier this year, a tree nursery in Florida hired a fleet of robots called HV100 (or “Harvey”), designed by Boston firm Harvest Automation. These Wall-E-like robots autonomously space out saplings as they grow bigger and pack them tightly when it’s time to sell them.

Just like Harvey, Blue River Technology’s Lettuce Bot is an automaton, which, as you could guess, can make sure rows upon rows of lettuce are growing perfectly. In 2012, a Lettuce Bot prototype was tested at “the Salad Bowl of the World,” Salinas Valley, where it crawled along rows of green veggies like a strict teacher doing rounds during an exam. The robot analyzes each plant, comparing it against more than a million images of lettuce in its database, to determine whether it’s a weed (or an errant lettuce growing too close to another) that needs to be eliminated. Its creators plan to tweak Lettuce Bot in the future, so it can be used on other crops.

A Minnesota company, on the other hand, spent 14 years developing a tractor that drives itself. It doesn’t use GPS so it can’t navigate streets like Google’s autonomous car can — instead, it responds to ground-based transponders planted around the perimeter of your land. The self-driving vehicle finds its way around the field based on the map it created after you take it around for the first time. To be sure that it doesn’t accidentally go on a rampage, its creators designed it to shut down if a transponder determines that it’s straying from its path. It’s also equipped with radar in order to avoid trees and other objects. The company believes that the tractor has potential to be used for mining and groundskeeping vehicles. There are also many monitoring robots like one San Diego company’s Crop Load estimator, used to estimate the amount of fruits of vegetables that a farmer can expect.

It’s not just fruit and veggie farmers that are going high-tech, though: many American dairy farmers have started using robotic milkers. They actually just set up these milkers on their farm, allowing cows to line up for milking whenever they want. Aside from being able to milk the animals, though, the machines can also monitor how much each cow has eaten, the number of steps she’s taken per day and, of course, the amount and quality of milk being produced.

AERIAL DRONES FOR FARMS OF THE FUTURE

While we always hear about drones being developed for the military and law enforcement, at least one person in the industry believes it has bigger potential in agriculture. Speaking to Wired, Chris Mailey of the drone promotion organization AUVSI, says farming has fewer hurdles to overcome and, at the same time, farmers are motivated by the potential rewards of early adoption.

While the Federal Aviation Administration hasn’t approved drones for farming yet, it’s already begun testing one, (which can not only monitor crops’ condition, but also test soil quality) in North Dakota. Some farmers are already using drones, though, such as this 17-year-old Redditor from Southwest Kansas, who flies a drone from Kansas company AgEagle over his family’s land to take infrared images of their crops and determine their health. His family then uses data gathered from those infrared images to adjust fertilizer distribution, as needed. Most aerial drones for farming have the same function, giving farmers an aerial view of their crops so they can save water, chemicals and fertilizer.

THE FUTURE OF ROBOTIC FARMING

Farm robots are not without fault. The Mitchells and their neighbors machines, for instance, have weakened the soil in the area and made it prone to erosion. Still, there’s no going back now, and you’ll likely see a variety of machines performing different functions on big farms across the globe. The US, in particular, seeks to develop better robots for the country’s farmers: the Department of Agriculture and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture are currently spending the $4.5 million funding they set aside in 2013 to fund various agrobot projects. Long story short, it’s just the beginning for robot-powered agriculture.

[Image credit: University of Florida (orange harvester), Draganfly (drone)]

Filed under: Misc, Robots

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IKEA’s taking its low cost solar panels to eight more countries

Remember when IKEA started selling solar panels in the UK despite its famous lack of sunshine? It must have been successful, because company CEO Peter Agnefjäll has just pledged that eight more nations will get the service in the next 18 months. First up is the Netherlands, which will begin offering the gear on October 28th, while Swiss stores will launch just before Christmas. The company’s remaining tight-lipped on the other six locations, but we’d imagine the bulk of them will be in neighboring European countries. At the same time, Agnefjäll also pledged that, by 2020, all of IKEA’s plastic products will be sourced from recycled plastic or renewable materials as part of a pledge to save 700,000 tons of CO2 each year. Clearly someone’s been listening to those clever folks down at the UN.

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NASA’s MAVEN probe arrives in orbit around Mars

Whenever NASA achieves something, row after row of neatly-dressed mission controllers all begin whooping and clapping. The reason for today’s jubilation is the news that, after nearly a year, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution probe has successfully entered orbit around the red planet. MAVEN began its tour of duty at 10:24pm EDT Sunday night, and after a six-week test phase, will analyze the upper atmosphere of Mars in an attempt to understand how its climate has influenced the surface below. In addition, the information will help other white shirt-and-pocket-protector-wearing analysts to determine if, when, and how best to send a manned mission to Mars in the 2030s. You never know, maybe MAVEN will be able to find some Methane in the atmosphere and make David Bowie very happy.

[Image Credit: NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center]

Filed under: Transportation, Science, Alt

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Via: Ars Technica

Source: NASA

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