It’s getting increasingly difficult to feed humanity’s seven billion-plus mouths, especially as climate change begins to wreak havoc on the world’s staple crop supplies. While efforts are being made to find hardier alternatives, a research team from the University of Sydney has developed a tool to better manage the crops we’ve already got.
Industrial agriculture is currently facing some dire challenges. Today’s farmers must contend with shrinking crop yields and disappearing profit margins thanks to a rapidly warming planet, not to mention the political and socioeconomic fallout of maintaining the current system of migratory farm labor. However, the Ladybird farm automator could hold the key to solving both issues.
“The automation of on-farm processes is poised to play a decisive role in minimising input and maximising output of future agriculture,” Dr James Underwood, Senior Research Fellow from the university’s Australian Centre for Field Robotics, told ABC Australia. “Automation can help to increase efficiency and yield, by having many of the manual tasks of farming performed by specially designed agricultural robotic devices.”
The roving robotic platform, toting a curved shell of photovoltaic plates, was designed specifically for monitoring environmental variables and plant health on large farm plots. It measures soil quality and nutrient loads, monitors plant development, and detects and identifies a wide number of pests.
The “Ladybird” was designed and built specifically for the vegetable industry with the aim of creating a ground robot with supporting intelligent software and the capability to conduct autonomous farm surveillance, mapping, classification, and detection for a variety of different vegetables. This is not unlike the Blue River Lettucebot.
Source: Gizmodo India
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