Today agricultural robots can be classified into several groups: harvesting or picking, planting, weeding, pest control, or maintenance. Scientists have the goal of creating ‘robot farms’ where all of the work will be done by machines. The main obstacle to this kind of robot farm is that farms are a part of nature and nature is not uniform. It is not like the robots that work in factories building cars. Factories are built around the job at hand, whereas, farms are not. Robots on farms have to operate in harmony with nature. Robots in factories don’t have to deal with uneven terrain or changing conditions. Scientists are working on overcoming these problems.
The number or agricultural robots, agrobots, is increasing each year. The jobs they can do are also increasing with new technology in hardware and software. Robots are milking cows, shearing sheep, picking fruit, weeding, spraying, and cultivating, They use GPS and sensors for navigation. The new robots are getting smaller and smarter.
Fungicides:
Robots can be used to combat plant disease. Diseases cause a lot of damage to crops and fungi are the most common causes of crop loss in the entire world. To kill a fungal disease you need a fungicide, a kind of pesticide. Fungal diseases cause many problems. They interfere with the growth and development of a crop. They attack the leaves which are needed for photosynthesis and decrease the productivity of the crop. They can also cause blemishes on the crops which makes them worth less on the market. After the crops are harvested fungi can grow and spoil the fruits, vegetables, or seeds. Robots can treat plants that have been infected or destroy them if necessary. They could treat just the plants that need it, instead of covering the entire crop with fungicide. [3]
Herbicide:
Another use for robots is in weeding. The robot could pull weeds from around the plants. It might just cut the tops off. All of the material could be collected by a robot and brought to a composting site. This would limit the need for herbicides, chemicals that destroy or inhibit the growth of plants. Herbicides are intended to kill weeds but many times they also damage the crops.
Pesticide:
Pesticides are used to control insects that can be harmful to crops. They are effective but have many side effects. The environment can be affected by pesticides. Insects also adapt to the toxin in a pesticide and the survivors breed and pass the resistant trait on to the next generation making stronger insects that are harder to kill. Robots could solve this by removing pests from the crops without using chemicals. They might suck them up with a vacuum. A bellow base air system makes a vacuum that doesn’t require the large amount of power of regular vacuum systems. There are ways to kill the insects without chemicals. The robot could put them in a container with water or into one closed up to produce extreme heat in the sun. Microbial fuel cells could be used to reduce the insects to electrical power with bacteria. Pesticides kill everything. Robots could be programmed to just get rid of particular pests and not harm anything else. [23]
These robots are currently in use or under development. Click on the pictures for more information.
Mushroom Picking Robot
SlugBot Pest Remover
Ag Ant Ecosystem
Cow Milking Robot
