Posted on 04/08/2006 3:25:10 PM PDT by Reaganesque
April 8, 2006 Robots are on the march again into the last bastion of labour intensive industry - farming and horticulture. Researchers from Warwick HRI (the University of Warwick's horticultural arm), and its manufacturing engineering section, Warwick Manufacturing Group, are working on a suite of robots and automated systems which could transform farming and horticulture over the next decade. One of the best ideas we’ve seen in a long time is this inflatable conveyor belt developed for UK-based agricultural machinery company Aeropick. Due to an ingenious wheeled and inflatable system, up to 100 metres of powered conveyor belt can be deployed within five minutes to aid the agricultural and horticultural harvesting process and offers massive labour cost savings along with significant increases in productivity. As the belt can be set up to variable length of between 25 metres and 100 metres, it is highly adaptable allowing crops to be processed at high speed straight to cool storage, washing, sorting, grading etc Amazingly, there’s also a mushroom picking robot and Robot Grass Cutter too.
The inflatable conveyor system can be driven into an open field or covered growing area on the Brumby VariTrak base vehicle. The Varitrack can vary its wheel spacing from 1 to 1.5 metres to suit crop spacing and has an additional 10KVA of power for processing, cooling, washing, sorting etc. in the field.
The robotic mushroom picker robot uses a charged coupled camera to spot and select only mushrooms of the exact size required for picking achieving levels of accuracy far in excess of human labour. The mushrooms are then picked by a suction cup on the end of a robotic arm. Whilst the speed of picking is currently just over half that of a human - the mushrooms and the robot can be set to pick 24 hours a day right through the night without the need for a break. The researchers also hope to increase the speed of picking to much closer to that of a human worker.
Mowing the lawn is a drudge but for growers, farmers, even golf course owners, with large amounts of grass land it's a massive problem with every tractor requiring a skilled employee to manage such pastures. Researchers in the Warwick Manufacturing Group are developing a new method which can allow a farmer or grower to deploy multiple robotic grass cutting machines at the same time all under the supervision of just a single employee. They are working with the "Ransomes Spider" grass cutting device which can already be remotely controlled and can even mow on 40 degree inclines. They are replacing that remote control with a computer that can use its own data sensors attached to the mower, to autonomously travel across fields working in groups with other robotic mowers ensure that the field is mowed as quickly as possible.
The thing is since our government doesn't enforce our laws, they're prodominately moving to the construction industry (because of the pay). So while I think the elimination of labor through technology is a good thing in my mind, they'll flood the jobs that many Americans can and definitely want to do.
We would already have this stuff if cheap slaves weren't available to be easily exploited. Citizens with rights are just too darned expensive for the would-be plantations.
Just doing the jobs illegals won't do.
"...the robot can be set to (work) 24 hours a day right through the night without the need for a break."
Hmmm...Border Patrol robots...now there's an idea.
Push is going to come to shove pretty quickly in the construction industry. Even if the housing bubble doesn't burst (and I think it will, big time this year) higher interest rates will definately slow construction, and out of work Americans are going to covet those jobs the illegals have been taking.
What's going through my mind is...what's going to happen to many third world nations when even labor isn't necessary via technology?
Everyone will be needing an education to even function. Not that I don't think there are major benefits to this kind of society...I just have doubts that many countries can pick-up the pace in this area....sometimes I doubt our educational system will keep up.
Robotics are great but they require a skilled person to set up and maintain. When I was a paint room foreman I kept track of two paint robots. They did a fair job but the total system wasn't ideal so they required lots of tweaking when there were parts or color changes.
Overall the two bots probably saved us from hiring one and a half extra painters.
A tight labor market produces beneficial side-effect in the way of technological advance?
Who knew?
</sarc>
DUmmies railing on about the supposed menace of a non-existent 'labor shortage' seem intellectually incapable of grasping the negative impacts that a glut of unskilled and uneducated labor have upon society.
Did you ping me for a reason? Do you think you just had some sort of a revelation?
Robots doing the jobs Americans refuse do for slave-wages with no unwanted societal side-effects PING.
Tell me...
I was born and raised around a family that's engulfed with union thoughts. Somehow I have my own independent mind, with a general understanding of why they have their positions. I've yet to meet a union worker whom likes illegal immigration. I'm shocked that dem leaders are just shunning their base votes. While I've never voted for a dem, I know some of my relatives are really starting to see them for their true colors.
I must note that I dislike Rhinos more than dems...atleast they're openly against me and not backstabbers.
No revelation. Just further de-pantsing the 'labor shortage' myth.
"DUmmies railing on about the supposed menace of a non-existent 'labor shortage' seem intellectually incapable of grasping the negative impacts that a glut of unskilled and uneducated labor have upon society."
To be emphasized.
Illegals don't have a say until they become legal and can unionize.
A new constituency for the dems. takes shape: the robot vote. Look for robot riots demanding rights.
One would hope that our Congress would think of the long term impact of amnesty to a large number of untrained workers. The only way they will be useful in the future will be if we also provide the education to make them useful.
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