Robot Living

Creepier than a human like robot in an uncanny valley is the robot that is being trained to harvest cauliflower.

Scientists at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) have developed an infravision system which should allow them to see through all the leaves and greenery and harvest cauliflower with a robot easily.

NPL is working with KMS Projects and Vegetable Harvesting Systems (VHS) to develop this project.  The project came about after a study of farmers indicated that up to 60% of certain crops are wasted each year, causing farmers to lose money.  Part of this is due to a loss of migrant workers.

Link via (The Register)

Tags: harvest, robot, uk

Carnegie Mellon is at it again.  This time they want to make robots do all the farm work.

Tony Stentz, an engineer from Carnegie Mellon thinks the time is right for such pursuits.  Tony worked on Boss, the autonomous vehicle that won DARPA’s Grand Challenge.

Tony and other colleagues have outfitted the tractor pictured here and are able to make it navigate on its own through an orchard by using a 3D laser ranging scanner.

The outfitted vehicles could either be used to spray crops or potentially pick fruit.

A company called Vision Robotics already has robots that do pruning.  This is a slightly different approach to robotic farming in that a human drives the tractor and robotic arms do the pruning.

Link via (New Scientist)

Tags: carnegie mellon

More robotic gardening.  This time Adafruit Industries visits Peter Sand at the W/——— project space in Chinatown NYC.

Using a protoshield, Arduinos and many other parts, Peter’s robot plants seeds and tends the garden.

Video after the break.

Link via (Make) via (Adafruit)
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Tags: arduino, gardening, robot

The Automower 260 ACX from Husqvarna can now send text messages when it sees you loafing about.  You lazy sod *$% !, get out here and help me.

The mower can mow about 1/2 an acre on a single charge and then heads back to it’s base for a recharge, which takes about 40 minutes.

Currently priced for the European market at €4,000.  No word on when it is coming stateside.

See Husqvarna’s solar powered mower here.

We couldn’t find a video of the 260, but see the other models in a video after the break.

Link via (Endgadget)

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Tags: automower, husqvarna, lawnmower, robot, swedish

No, not that.  We are talking about robots that milk cows.

Dutch company Lely is introducing the Astronaut A3 robot for milking cows.  The new robot sports easier cleaning and an improved management system over older models.

Using a robot to milk cows means the farmers can get more milk as the cows can be milked 24 hours a day.

See the movie about the Astronaut A3  here or the full press release here.

See our previous post about milking robots here.

I wonder how the cows feel about all this?

Link via (Farmers Weekly Interactive)

Tags: Agriculture, dutch, lely, robot