New breed of robots being tamed for the farms

One of the major problems that the world is going to face in the coming years is a shortage of food. So much land used for agriculture is being used for other purposes now, that land has already become a rare commodity. With the ever growing population, more food is always needed and as of now the world's food requirement is being met.

robots on farm

But it has been predicted that in the coming decades a food shortage would be one of the foremost problems that world will have to tackle. It is right now that the technology should be built to maximize the output from any field, and minimize any problems that occur with any crop. With this in mind scientists have been developing a new breed of robots that could take over the complete farming process.

Scientists in Israel and Europe have been building these robots, and say that the technology is ready. Yael Edan, an engineer and robotics researcher at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel says:

The technology is ready, and now we can start seeing this penetrating into the market. I would say there will definitely be robots out there in five years -- maybe not be on every farm, and maybe not for every farmer. I think now the time is there.

The autonomous agricultural robots could identify, spray and pick individual fruits and vegetables very soon. They could discern the fruits from the leaves, and treat them appropriately. The new research focuses on the "brains" of the computers, teaching them to see and learn like human brains do. And any breakthrough in how the robots perceives the ambient environment would help advance other fields like robotic surgery and other medical applications.

Edan talks about the technology:

We will have an algorithm that will see simple shapes. And when food is partially covered by leaves, it will say: 'OK, let's not use the full-shape algorithm. But since we only see part of the food, let's try to complete the contour.'

Bernie Engel, an agricultural engineer tells the reason why this technology is important:

In many cases, there are challenges finding labor to do some of the harvesting of strawberries and other fruits and vegetables. It's hard work. There's a timeliness factor, where you can't wait a week. You need lots of labor for fairly short periods of time, which creates real challenges for keeping people employed in a sustainable manner.

So the day may not be far when you eat food that has produce grown by robots built by these scientists.

Via: Discovery