Geek's garden

03.04.2006
Robots down on the farm

Robots are continuing to make inroads into the last bastion of labor-intensive industry -- farming and horticulture. In England, University of Warwick researchers are working on a number of robotics and automation products that could vastly reduce the labor costs of farmers and growers. The following are two of them:

Robotic mushroom picker: The robot's camera "eye" is calibrated to spot and select only mushrooms of the exact size required for picking, at a level of accuracy that far exceeds that of human labor. The mushrooms are then picked by a suction cup on the end of a robotic arm. While the speed of picking is currently just over half that of a human, the robot can pick 24 hours a day. The researchers hope to increase the speed of picking to a rate much closer to that of a human worker.

Robot grass cutter: Mowing the lawn is a problem for farmers and even golf course owners, because to manage such pastures, a skilled employee is required for each tractor. Researchers in the Warwick Manufacturing Group have developed a method of mowing that allows a grower to deploy multiple robotic grass-cutting machines at the same time, all under the supervision of just a single employee using a remote control. They are working to replace the remote control with a computer that will use data sensors attached to each mower, which will autonomously travel across fields, working in groups with other robotic mowers.

Groves of academe: Georgia Tech plots path to carbon-based electronic devices

Graphite, the material that gives pencils their marking ability, could be the basis for a new class of nanometer-scale electronic devices that have the attractive properties of carbon nanotubes but could be produced using established microelectronics manufacturing techniques.