Agricultural robots advantages, disadvantages and use
Agricultural robotics is the logical proliferation of automation technology into bio-systems such as agriculture, forestry, greenhouse, horticulture, and fisheries, It is replacing the common techniques to perform the same tasks with high efficiency.
Agricultural robots
The agricultural robots are the robots deployed for agricultural purposes, The main area of application of robots in agriculture today is at the harvesting stage, the possible emerging applications are robots or drones for weed control.
Applying automation to agriculture helps create several advancements in the industry while helping the farmers save money and time, Some of the scientific contributions are the mobile robot, the flying robot, the forester robot, and Demeter which are exclusively used for agriculture.
Even in developing countries, farmers are interested in using robots to tend the fields of crops, pick fruit or even maintain the animals, The agriculture robots should have human interaction to compensate for programming complexity issues.
The mechanical design consists of the end effector, manipulator, and gripper, the design of the manipulator includes the task, the economic efficiency, and the required motions, The end effector in the agricultural robot is the device found at the end of the robotic arm, and it is used for various agricultural operations.
Agricultural robots advantages
The robots do not get sick or tired and they do not need time off, They can operate with closer tolerances (so, every round is at full field capacity), They offer fewer errors and at higher speeds, and the higher quality products can be sensed by the machines accurately.
As the machines can be made lighter and cheaper if the driver’s seat, controls, and cab can be eliminated, The robots can be used in various fields in agriculture, The robots can easily work around trees, rocks, ponds, and other obstacles.
The robots can reduce up to 80% of farm’s use of pesticides, The robots may perform more or different tasks in the future, The robots can create jobs for the people who have to make the robots and who have to fix the robots.
The robots have many fields of application in agriculture such as the Merlin Robot Milker, Rosphere, Harvest Automation, Orange Harvester, lettuce bot, and the weeder, Another field of application is horticulture, One horticultural application is the development of RV 100 by Harvest Automation Inc.
RV100 is used in handling and organizing the potted plants including the spacing capabilities, collection, and consolidation, RV100 for this task offers high placement accuracy, autonomous outdoor and indoor function, and reduced production costs.
The idea of applying robotics technology in agriculture is very new, In agriculture, the opportunities for robot-enhanced productivity are immense and robots are appearing on farms in various guises and increasing numbers.
You can expect the robots to perform agricultural operations autonomously such as spraying and mechanical weed control, the fruit picking, allowing the farmers to reduce the environmental impact, increase precision and efficiency, and manage individual plants in novel ways.
Robotics is spreading every day to cover further domains, as the chance of replacing human operators provides effective solutions with a return on the investment, robotics do difficult tasks that are harmful to the health of the workers, So, They offer safety for the workers.
The robots can protect human workers from the harmful effects of handling the chemicals by hand and through the system of high spraying, and they can reduce up to 80% of a farm’s use of pesticides.
The fruit-picking robots, The driverless tractor/sprayer, and the sheep-shearing robots are designed to replace human labor, a lot of factors have to be considered such as the size and colour of the fruit to be picked, before the commencement of the task.
The robots can be used for other horticultural tasks like pruning, weeding, spraying, and monitoring, They can be used in livestock applications ( livestock robotics ) such as automatic milking, washing, and castrating.
The robots in the agricultural industry offer a higher quality of fresh produce, lower production costs, and a smaller need for manual labor, They can be used to automate manual tasks such as weed or bracken spraying where the use of tractors and other manned vehicles is too dangerous for the operators.
The rice planters plant rice in the rice fields, The robotic milkers milk cows in the barns or the milking factories, and the fruit pickers pick the fruit in the fruit fields, and the robots are programmed depending on their tasks, The robotic milker and the fruit picker are multi-functional while the rice planter is not.
Heavy chemicals or drug dispensers, manure, or fertilizers spreaders are the activities that are concerned by the deployment of unmanned options, The agricultural robots use a combination of advanced sensors, cameras, software, and technology.
Agricultural robots disadvantages
It costs a lot of money to make or buy the robots, They need maintenance to keep them running, The farmers can lose their jobs, The robots can change the culture / the emotional appeal of agriculture and the energy issues are costly.
The robots may be more acceptable to the non-farm community, The jobs in agriculture require intelligence and quick, and the robots can be substituted with the human operator.
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very helpful indeed. i thought the article was extremely informative. however, i don’t think it would put farmers out of their jobs, instead, farmers would become more of robotic engineers, fixing the robots. farmers would still have to watch the robots, keep an eye on watch.
Thank you very much for your comment
Agricultural robots are very useful to the farmer and the agriculture but they have some disadvantages