Botball 2007 Research Project
 

Team 07-0129:
  Lockheed Martin
  Exploring Program
  Team 1
 
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Current Technology
Robotics in the field of agriculture is a fairly recent phenomenon. Engineers and agriculturalists, however, have already designed various successful robots. In July 1979, Australian engineers designed the Oracle Robot, the first machine to autonomously shear a sheep with superb quality [12]. Then in 1989, the Oracle's successor, Shear Magic, achieved the same feat but with the use of more advanced computers while taking up less space [11].

Currently, robots are being developed to harvest various food products, ranging from milk to tomatoes:

Purdue University researchers are working on a machine that automatically milks cows, clean their udders, and detect udder abnormalities and problems in the milk [5]. Nottingham is also developing a similar robot, one which allows cows to decide when they want to be milked. As a result, both cows and farm workers do not have to follow a strict routine for milking. Furthermore, the dull work involved in milking is eliminated giving workers more time to look after the cows themselves. In turn, milk yield is increased up to 10% in some cases and dairy animals are kept disease-free. Evidently, the milking project achieves higher production while staying environmentally friendly [14]. 

Peter Ling from Ohio State University also heads a research group that is developing a tomato harvesting robot for long term space missions [13]. The robot uses a sensing unit to identify red fruit and then utilizes a robotic arm with grabbing and twisting abilities. This project demonstrates that developments in rural robots have benefits that are not limited to life on Earth.

Another major issue in the field of agriculture is weed control. Since weeds inhibit the growth of other plants, farms would normally have to hire people to manually find and remove these plant nuisances. Because the task is very tiresome and mundane, very few people are willing to do the job, which forces companies to lower their production [6].

A robot performing this task will not only increase crop yield but also potentially eliminate the use of harmful pesticides and herbicides. Bjron Astrand, of Halmstad University in Sweden, has developed Lukas, a robot which removes weeds for plants grown in rows (i.e. sugar beets, lettuce, and cauliflower). Though the mechanism is not ready for the market, Lukas can successfully distinguish between the weeds and the actual crop [6].
 
The robot takes an overhead photo of the crop and its surrounding, and then analyzes the colors and forms to identify weeds. Finally, the robot physically removes the weed without harming the crop. Astrand hopes that by the time Lukas is ready for commercial use, weed control costs will go down as far as 50% [7].

 

 
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