Robotic Farmer: Prospero, a single member of a robotic swarm

Prospero is the working prototype of an Autonomous Micro Planter (AMP) that uses a combination of swarm and game theory and is the first of four steps. It is meant to be deployed as a group or "swarm". The other three steps involve autonomous robots that tend the crops, harvest them, and finally one robot that can plant, tend, and harvest--autonomously transitioning from one phase to another.

Prospero is controlled with a Parallax Propeller chip mounted on a Schmart Board. Its body is designed by Lynxmotion and the orginal programming allows it to walk autonomously in any direction while avoiding objects with its duel ultrasonic Ping))) without turning it's body. An underbody sensor array allows the robot to know if a seed has been planted in the area at the optimal spacing and depth. Prospero can then dig a hole, plant a seed in the hole, cover the seed with soil, and apply any pre-emergence fertilizers and/or herbicides along with the marking agent. Prospero can then talk to other robots in the immediate proximity that it needs help planting in that area or that this area has been planted and to move on via IR (currently represented with a green and red LED ). The more seeds it plants, the more the "green" LED lights up, the more it draws other robots nearby (+2). The more it detects planted seeds, the more it repulses other robots with the "red" LED (-1)

Why small, autonomous robots?
Robotics in Agriculture
Despite its quaint reputation, agriculture has always been an early adapter of technology. This is evident from the beginning of mechanization with the cotton gin, McCormick's Reaper, tractors, hybrid seed, to genetically engineered plants that protect themselves and grow in arid environments. Yields have grown quickly, but demand from developing countries and population growth are growing faster

We know that we need to continue to find ways to increase the productivity of land on a per unit basis. Agriculture has started to add computerization and automation to the current machinery with things like GPS based precision farming systems that can autonomously drive tractors, monitor yield, and apply fertilizer. However, these aftermarket add-ons are built around the single most expensive and awkward part of the equipment. The person controlling the tractor.

Today's agricultural equipment has been designed around a person sitting in a chair. It cost a lot to employ a single person so the equipment grew larger in order to maximize the productivity of that one person. However, this method has its drawbacks. Farming decisions have to be made at the field level. Nature is chaotic and dynamic. Soil nutrients and moisture change from foot to foot. Having equipment that allows a single person to plant a thousand acres in a day comes at the cost of productivity per acre as a result of treating all those acres as the same. A swarm of small robots like Prospero would have the ability to farm inch by inch, examining the soil before planting each seed and choosing the best variety for that spot. This would maximizing the productivity of each acre, allow less land to be converted to farm land, feed more people, and provide a higher standard of living for those people because they would spend less of their money on food.

Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Farming Robot
• Robotic Farmer
• Parallax
• Parallax Propeller
• Lynxmotion
• Schmart Board
• Hexapod
• Hexapod robot
• corn
• robot
• farmer
• planting
• farming
• technology
• electronics
• swarm robot
• swarm
• ant
• ants
• game theory
• swarm theory
• insect behavior
• future

[Potchi79]

But can it pull weeds?

[vanmunch36]

@Potchi79 Good question. I talk about this in the video info, but briefly. Prospero is the first of what would be 4 phases. The first phase, Prospero, the robot plants, second phase, the robot tends (weeds ect.), 3rd, the robot harvests. There would be 3 distinct robots. In the forth phase, you would have one robot that is the combination of all three and can autonomously transitioning from one phase to another throughout the season.

[vanmunch36]

Along with that, in today's monoculture agriculture systems, it would not be very difficult to build a robot that could identify "not meant to be there" plants and kill them mechanically or chemically.

[animus999]

rig it solar so no fuel!!!

[Tannz0rz]

Simply beautiful! Thanks for the inspiration and the in-depth description!

[MrPHASIO]

Take patent on this and after that, make it open source so the people around the world can build them up themself with your blueprint, becuase the 3d printers will someday be very common and already is. Because there is some people in the world that dont gonna like this idea so protect it and make it open to the world, and document every step and backup them and then release it world wide! You are an magnificent hero for the human kind. Thanks for inventing this stuff!

[MrTimlitw]

Farmers are going to more and more systems that only disturb the soil minimally. Tilling the entire field exposes it to more erosion. But this is still not efficient for mass production of crops - but program it for precise depth for garden seeds would be perfect. oops there goes my therapy.

[factionxvt408x]

@comaeternal88

You can't really plant seeds on dry hardened soil anyway. LOL. You have to at least till and plow the land make rows and stuff and moisten it up. If you just put a seed underneath the surface of the earth in dry, hard, broken soil it would just die anyway.

[factionxvt408x]

I find it ridiculous that what is defined as a "Robot" has to be something that is crab-like and has exposed servos and sheet metal to patch them together to work in unity.

Why not just make an autonomous planter like the ones that are being used by farmers today? Wouldn't that be more efficient than planting seeds 1 by 1?

In terms of practicality, this is a step back from the industrial revolution.

Cute project though.

[Carutsu]

Holy crap! awesome!