Posted on 07/10/2015 7:49:14 AM PDT by Red Badger
Dr Christopher Lehnert talked about the potential robots held for the agriculture industry at CQ University yesterday.
A STEREOTYPICAL farmer might wear overalls and gumboots in 2015.
But in not long at all, he could be a state-of-the-art robot.
Agricultural robotics research fellow Dr Christopher Lehnert spoke at CQUniversity yesterday about robots being developed to pick fruit and detect weeds.
One problem they could solve was harvesting labour shortages.
"It's a causal workforce problem. (For farmers) their really high risk is getting a workforce to pick the fruit," Mr Lehnert said.
"There's not a worry about job losses. We're just shifting the paradigm. Instead of being in the field, they will control robots."
He hoped to be well on the way towards a commercial fruit-picking design by the end of next year.
Another part of his research was designing robots for broadacre weed management.
"We are looking at taking the human out of the tractor and getting an autonomous platform," he said.
"The large machines they use on farms do a lot of damage to the soil. They compact the soils and destroy them.
"But robots would be smaller, they wouldn't cause this issue."
Problems with herbicide resistance are costing farms millions, but Dr Lehnert said robots could help solve this problem.
"You normally have to do a 'double knock' or multiple applications of herbicide.
"As the robot has a vision system on board it can detect the weed and apply herbicide or alternative mechanical methods to kill the weeds individually.
"Instead of blanket spraying the farm, you reduce your costs in herbicide use.
"This is close to commercial application."
Vast majority of illegals arrive seeking the free stuff.
but, but........can they vote.................?????????????????
Necessity is the mother of invention.
No, and they don’t rape and kill (much).....................
Yeah they will still come here they just won’t spend a year picking fruit before they start sucking off the government.
Women, children?...................
A robot can work 24/7 if necessary, doesn’t require toilet facilities, won’t go on strike and won’t rape your wife or daughter............or son.....................
I can hardly wait for that addled, ossified senator from Arizona to ask ‘but who’ll pick our lettuce’ again.
And won't poop on our asparagus spears.
I was raised in The South, literally in cotton fields, which were everywhere. Blacks and whites picked cotton in the late summer early fall by the thousands all over The South.
Then they invented a Cotton Picking Machine. It was slow to take off at first because of the expense, but eventually displaced all the stoop labor. One man could pick an entire field of 50 acres in a day that would have taken a couple of weeks..................
Might get some oil on it, but not e.coli.......................
I have a robot that mows my lawn. Very easy to set up. Works great. Hard to steal (GPS/alarm).
Paid for itself in a season.
If or when fruit-picking robots become ubiquitous, ‘Rats will declare “Robots Lives Matter” and manage to get their votes.
These ideas have been around for a long time, Japan is way out in front of this.
I have read the only fruit they cannot currently pick by machine are berries.
The cost is falling dramatically.
I used to work with paint robots. A major force multiplier.
With them I could do the painting of more than 3 people. They didn’t lose an hour per day on breaktimes and foot dragging to get started. When my department was up and running smoothly I could pick up a gun and do some painting myself.
I’ll need an H1B for my Mahindra
My wife does that................
LOL!..................
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