along withRobotThe popularity of the Robot threat theory also began to prevail. Will robots take our jobs? We often ask this question. Some people think that this is unfounded worry, and some people think that it is necessary to plan ahead. As everyone knows, although robots are menacing, they also help us to a large extent. What we need to do is to regard them as friends, not enemies.
Recently, the Australian Wildland Robotics Centre has developed a new four-wheeled Robot called SwagBot. The researchers developed it so that it can help farmers monitor the health of livestock and crops in all aspects.
It is reported that SwagBot can help farmers graze, harvest crops and tow trailers. In addition, it can flexibly bypass ditches, cross stakes, traverse swamps, and move freely on rough mountain roads.
Salah, a professor of robotics at the University of Sydney, said SwagBot would be able to measure the body temperature of plants and animals from a distance, analyse their movements and ensure their safety at night. “We want SwagBot to monitor farm conditions 24 hours a day to keep livestock and crops healthy,” he said.
On June 30, the first field test of SwagBot was successful. If put into practice, it will be the world’s first farm robot capable of monitoring the health of livestock.
In fact, this is not the first time that robots have benefited agriculture.It can be said that with the agriculturalmechanicalMore and more high-techs are being applied to agriculture, and robots are the representatives of these high-techs. In fact, robots can not only detect livestock and crops, but also milk and fertilize.
On the dairy farm at the University of Cambridge, milking is done by robots without any manual work. The robot is installed next to the cow barn. Once the cows need to be milked, they will automatically queue up for the robot service. At this time, the robot will first scan and position the cow’s udder, clean and sterilize it, fix the nipple through automatic sensing, and then milk the cow.
The role of the robot is not only milking, but also testing the milk quality during the milking process. The testing content includes protein, fat, sugar content, temperature, color, electrolytes, etc., and automatically transmits milk that does not meet the quality requirements. To the waste milk storage; for qualified milk, the robot also discards a small part of the milk that is initially expressed each time to ensure quality and hygiene.
The milking robot also has another function, that is, it automatically collects, records, and processes the cow’s physical condition, milk quantity, daily milking frequency, etc., and transmits it to the computer network. Once an abnormality occurs, it will automatically alarm, which greatly improves labor productivity and milk quality, effectively reduces the incidence of dairy cows, saves management costs, and improves economic benefits. According to the survey, the use of milking robots can increase milk production by 20% to 50%.
Meanwhile, researchers at an agricultural machinery company in Minnesota, USA, have launched Rosphere, a fertilizing robot. It will start from the actual situation of different soils and apply the appropriate amount of fertilizer. Its accurate calculation reasonably reduces the total amount of fertilization and reduces agricultural costs. Thanks to the science of fertilization, the groundwater quality is improved.
The exterior of the robot is like a rubber sleeve, and the mechanical part inside is constantly moving the center of gravity, because it uses a pendulum, a shaft and something that can rotate, so that the ball can guide itself. The pendulum can swing freely horizontally or vertically, so by controlling the pendulum, you can control the robot to roll forward or backward. In addition, the robot has a WiFi antenna, which is convenient for remote control.
In the future, Rosphere will mainly be used in precision agriculture, rather than spraying pesticides and fertilizing in large areas. This little robot will lean towards the gardener’s way, it can move crops without damaging them, applying pesticides and fertilizers precisely under certain conditions. During the test, the small robot passed different rough terrain and different soil moisture tests, and achieved good cooperation with humans. So far, the test results are quite satisfactory.
Seeing this, many people will ask again: So, will farmers be taken away by robots? At least for now, there is no need to worry, the agricultural application scope of robots is still relatively narrow. In addition, even if robots are introduced into agricultural planting areas on a large scale, new jobs will be created at that time: robot operators, robot monitors, etc. Therefore, what we have to do is to keep learning and improving, so as not to be eliminated by robots.
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