We're becoming obsolete

[daugen]

Prospero the farm robot and his grandchildren want to take away our tractors. Uh Oh.

Prospero the Swarming Farmbot Wants to Show You the Future of Agriculture | Popular Science

click on the video.

I think one good swat with the loader ought to slow 'em down...

 

[Ken73]

Reminds me of the movie Runaway (Tom Selleck, 1984.)

 

[newbury]

It will take decades to perfect farm robots, meanwhile industrial robots and food industry robots are being built by robots, ready to take over every menial job like burger flipper, stock clerk, warehouse worker.

 

[whistlepig]

These would be a delicacy for my barn mousies.

 

[300UGUY]

It will take decades to perfect farm robots, meanwhile industrial robots and food industry robots are being built by robots, ready to take over every menial job like burger flipper, stock clerk, warehouse worker.

The factory I used to work in had over 200 fork lift drivers in the 1980's. By the oughts, gantry robots with scanning capability had eliminated virtually all forklifts. Castings were unloaded by robot, transferred from machine to machine by robot, loaded back on custom made dunnage, the only place the liftrucks were used was to load and unload trucks. Maybe 2 guys as fork truck drivers. And where a dozen guys used to work in lift truck repair, zero. And repair of the newer technology is getting to be a job of replacing modules. Programming CNC is going to the machines also - the new systems download the math model from engineering, and write their own code for machining. So automation even extends to engineering now. Fewer engineers, and only very well educated ones are needed.

 

[300UGUY]

Back in the 70's, I first saw a design department at GM, it was a sea of drafting tables. Hundreds of people working on different projects. By 2000 the same group was down to a couple of dozen. Everything went to cad, and what used to take days could be done in a hour. Great productivity, but not so good for employees.

 

[daugen]

well, they'd better speed 'ol Prospo up, and make him bigger, because it looks like he isn't seriously productive at this point.
Looks like a crazy inventor gizmo for his back garden.

But we all know "something" is coming. Tractors over 100hp now have those control arms that look like the Starship Enterprise.
GPS guides the big machines while the operator makes sure a deer doesn't run in front of them. Or warms up his coffee in the built in kitchen.

Actually, these things remind me of small lunar rovers. Talk about trickle down tech.

 

[dave1949]

I think I would rather ride a tractor than run around fixing stalled robots. :laughing: There's a good Stephen King plot in there somewhere

 

[daugen]

I think I would rather ride a tractor than run around fixing stalled robots. :laughing: There's a good Stephen King plot in there somewhere

remember Star Wars? Those two droids were farm bots, utility bots to help around the farm. 3cpo and ...

 

[KYErik]

The planting robots seemed a little slow. So how long would it take the robots to plant 100,000 soybean seeds per acre? 10 seconds would seem about right based on the video- so that would be 277 hours for one robot to plant 1 acre (assuming that it did not have to search for an empty spot to plant). So, it would take 277 robots 1 hour to plant that acre- that would still be 40 hours to plant a small (40 acre) field. I would guess that each robot would cost at least $1K.

It seems much more efficient for the tractor pulling the planter to be robotically controlled.

I could almost see the "tender" robots turned loose in a corn field to do weeding for several months at a time- that makes more sense to me. They could likely be programmed to "paint" individual weed plants with an herbicide (or cut them down) and return to a recharging station as necessary. Perhaps they could even monitor for certain insects or diseases and then radio a request for an "air strike" of fungicide or insecticide in that area of the field.

I can see a new rural crime opportunity, "Robot rustling".

 

[daugen]

It seems much more efficient for the tractor pulling the planter to be robotically controlled.

agree 100%. With a human inside.
I have one of those round cleaning robots, a middle line one, and it works remarkably well, getting under
a few pieces of furniture that even the normal vac won't reach. Robbie the Robot per my wife.
But it really only picks up little bits of stuff, the stuff you can see. One still has to do vacuum normally.

Let's see, they've figured this out really well for pool vacs, they're everywhere.

I think they are still working out the tech here on a small scale. Then I'm assuming the bots will get larger.
Maybe we can get them to go after feral cats if they see one...

 

[dave1949]

Cat terminator! :laughing:

I don't think it something to worry about in my lifetime, but there is always the possibility that we should "go Amish" on this mechanization thing. Just decide that we will be happy at some level of technology that makes sense for humans.

Even at the low initial levels now employed, we have no idea how to provide meaningful work for many people as it is.

 

[KTurner]

I just had a mental image of thousands of these things working a huge field... And a sudden thunderstorm kicks up sending thousands of these bots on a death run for shelter. Every bot for itself!!!

 

[heviduty]

You had me at tractors, ....and now robots, too? This site just keeps getting more interesting.

 

[Bikewanderer]

The idea of a robot farm worker seems pretty hokey to me. If we assume that the average farmer has maybe 6 days to get planting done in the spring, that's 144 hours or planting. So, the only way to improve the current situation is to have more horsepower or be able to operate on days that he can't currently.

Adding multiple tractors that can be operated by one worker, more horsepower, or better traction is about the only opportunities that I can see.