This material focuses on how the business of agriculture will be changed by agriculture robots, agbots, which in turn addresses global challenges. It will also show how the map to how agbots will invade agriculture and change the way farming is done, and also how we will design agricultural machineries.
Agbots are robots created for agricultural purposes. They are applied in agriculture, mainly in the harvesting stage of farming.
Research (idtedex.com) has it that these robotics will be implemented into
• milking robotics
• dairy farm robotics
• autosteer tractors
• spraying drones
• data mapping drones
• de-weeding robotics
• fresh fruit harvesting robotics
• lettuce/vegetable thinning/harvesting robotics etc.
Technologically, overview and assessment covering the key agbots projects, such as vision sensors, LIDARs (Light Detection and Ranging), roadmaps showing how different equipment will become vision-enabled, intelligent and autonomous are being considered.
DRONE
Already thousands of milking agbots have been installed worldwide, has created a $1.9bn industry which has been projected to grow to $8bn by 2023. Tractors are being autonomous. 300,000of these tractors with tractor guidance were sold in 2016, which will rise to 660,000 per year 2027; drones will be reaching over $480m in 2027. There has been a delay in the use of drones, in large scale market production caused by high sensors cost, regulations and lack of farmer’s trust. But there will be a change in 2022, when the master-slave tractor is made.
In agrochemicals, vision-enabled robotic implements have been in use for some years. They follow crops growth, weeding and harvesting. This robotics are mostly been used in small scale farming, it is in its early stage in commercial farming.
MILKING ROBOTICS
AUTOSTEER TRACTORS
LIDARs
AGROCHEMICAL ROBOTICS
Unfortunately, cheap robotics can be gotten which in turn displaces millions of farm workers and hence the debate of COST OF HUMAN VERSUS ROBOTIC LABOURS