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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday April 19 2017, @11:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the where-is-the-jane-robot? dept.

When you've got a crop full of plants growing in a field, inspecting each and every one of them can be very monotonous work. That's why scientists are working on plant-inspecting robots, that perform the task autonomously. Most of those 'bots are wheeled, however, meaning that they could get stuck or fall over – plus they might get in the way of other machinery. With that in mind, scientists from Georgia Tech have created a prototype robot that swings over the plants like a monkey. It's called Tarzan.

The idea is that in fields where a Tarzan robot is being used, each row of plants will have a tightly-strung guy wire running overhead. Using its two "arms," the robot will swing itself along that wire, imaging the plants below with its built-in cameras as it does so. When it gets to the end of one row, it will just swing over to the wire running above the next row over, and start making its way back down it. That process will be repeated, until it covers the whole field.

It does sound like a better option than a wheeled robot--muck in the fields can get pretty deep.


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  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday April 20 2017, @06:23AM (2 children)

    by kaszz (4211) on Thursday April 20 2017, @06:23AM (#496719) Journal

    Jonathan Rogers, Assistant professor, Mechanical engineering: "We have a lot more people to feed, and we will have a lot more people to feed, than we ever had in history. The only way we can really achieve the food production we really going to need in the future. Is to employ a automation and robots."

    I have another suggestion. Make-Less-Kids!

    Direct link to the demonstration video [youtube.com] of the robot. (for those td;lr fans)

    As commented on earlier by others. The robot could be wheeled otherwise the mechanical tear will be excessive. And anyway it seems more worthwhile using a flying drone. As a bonus it can be programmed to take permanent care of any Monsanto sampling & poisoning [savethepinebush.org] helicopters.

    for farmers that do not buy seed from Monsanto, Monsanto will fly a helicopter over a farmer’s field and drop some Roundup herbicide. Then, a couple of weeks later, Monsanto will return. If the canola plants are still alive, that means they contain the patented gene. Monsanto will send farmers a letter asking for payment of the “Technology Fees”; Percy called these “extortion” letters.

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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday April 21 2017, @11:00PM (1 child)

    by bob_super (1357) on Friday April 21 2017, @11:00PM (#497644)

    > Monsanto will fly a helicopter over a farmer’s field and drop some Roundup herbicide

    Now, why don't you repeat to the nice Federal investigator how you did an aerial drop of toxic chemicals on someone's private property, contaminating their food source?
    We've Tomahawked brown people for barely more than that...

    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday April 21 2017, @11:44PM

      by kaszz (4211) on Friday April 21 2017, @11:44PM (#497668) Journal

      But brown people don't pay bribes. You didn't get the memo? ;)