How about pressing a button to get the food for you or order the robot to bring a coffee. Life is sophisticated now. We have robots for everything. One important field that is indispensable is farming. There are many evolutions and extinctions in the various fields, but farming is the field that needs to flourish always since it is one of the sources of food for human beings. How about even farming is sophisticated controlled by an intelligent robot. This would be one of the milestones in the field of farming and the field of robotics.
Researches are going on in these topics to build a robot that can manage a field, water plants and manage its own requirements.
The basic idea of introducing robots in the farming field, though, looks much of a luxury thing, but definitely, this would benefit farmers to a greater extent. The farm controlled by robots basically contains robots with water pumps in their hands, and then the pots are connected through communication networks to the robots and computers, and sensors.
The communication networks are one important part of robotic farming. The plants are also installed with soil sensors. These sensors are installed to make the robots aware of the nutrient contents in the soil. The plants can request for nutrients to the robot through the communication channel.
The water content can also be controlled in the same way, the plants can request water in times of need and then the robots would water them immediately.
The robot’s job is not completed once the plant starts growing, but the robots need to check for fruits and pluck the ripened ones. Other than managing the plants and catering to their needs, the robot needs to look to its charge as well. Once the charge is drained or reached a lower level, the robot has to charge itself to avoid any farming problems.
The main advantage of such a farming system is that farming is completely need-based. Only when the plants need something, the robot is going to provide them. So there is no waste of water or nutrients in this case and no need to worry about the plants’ excess water content.
The growth of plants is not uniform and differs greatly with each variety. The robots should not be time-based like watering the plants at a particular time. This might result in wasting water for the plants which may not actually require that.
Some robot features are most welcomed, like plucking the ripened fruits or reaping the wheat stalk. This tedious job is quickly done by the robot and avoiding any human intervention.
Robot in farming is still a research topic and are slowly coming in as college projects. But hopefully, very soon, these robots might gain importance and take their position in the fields as a helping hand for human beings in the future.