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National & World Ag News Headlines |
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Robots, Drones Becoming Workhorses for Agriculture
USAgNet - 11/21/2019
The small, rolling vehicle looks a bit like something out of a science fiction film as it moves slowly across a barren patch of land on Kansas State University's North Agronomy Farm.
It rolls on treads similar to an Army tank, but the complicated array of attachments suggests something else.
The machine, which measures 2 feet tall and 3 feet wide, was built for farm work by K-State agricultural engineer Dan Flippo and his students, who are testing its ability to cut a narrow trench and plant seeds in unison.
Their work on this day is a glimpse at agriculture of the not-too-distant future, when small machines guided by computer programs will do some of the work and give farmers large volumes of information that they can use to plant, manage and harvest better
crops.
"We are not trying to take over tractors or get rid of tractors; we are trying to make more food," Flippo said. "By 2050, we are going to have close to 10 billion people, and right now we are not close to meeting the amount of food production that will be
needed."
Much of agriculture already is being touched by some form of technology, whether it be sensors on tractors that precisely measure planting and fertilizing rates, or thermal infrared cameras attached to drones that fly above farm fields and detect water or insect
stress in crops. There are even robotic arms that can milk a cow.
"I think farmers are ready for everything that is easy to adopt and which gives them a reliable and confident source of information," said Ajay Sharda, associate professor of biological and agricultural engineering. "That's their bottom line. They cannot spend hours
and hours to set it up or hours to run them."
Therein lies an opportunity for universities like Kansas State, which, in recent years, has built considerable momentum toward incorporating technology on America's farms.
Flippo's fleet includes several vehicles that spent their first life as motorized wheelchairs. The students -- which include undergraduates and graduates -- are using the motor and casing to custom-build machines that serve a specific purpose on the farm.
"There are different categories that we are building," Flippo says. "The first is the rover category. This would be like a microwave size robot. Their purpose is to go out and scout a field, which is important because humans can scout really well, but nobody wants
to walk around a field all day."
When an entomologist goes out to look for pests in a field, they may look at two or three spots and make a judgment about the whole field. Rovers can cover the entire field, perhaps working through the night, and provide data on pest pressure in the entire field.
"There are some issues there, such as if it breaks, you're going to have to go find that in the field," Flippo said, noting that engineers also need to account for how long that vehicle can hold a charge, how it handles ruts in the field, and whether it can follow the
correct path between rows.
"But," he adds, "these small rovers can go through the field consistently and keep track of the field much better than humans ever could."
K-State also is building machines that are slightly bigger than the rovers, called ag drones. Flippo said these robots are "the workhorses," such as the unit they were testing recently to plant seed. Ag drones potentially could be used to carry tanks of chemical to
an area of a field or plant seed in areas where a larger tractor can't safely go, such as sloped hills.
Larger robots, some the size of lawnmowers and others the size of a bed frame, are capable of more conventional farming work, such as pulling disc drills for wheat, scouting fields and planting fields. But as the robots get bigger, Flippo notes that companies and
farmers become more concerned about safety. At this point, K-State is not working on larger robots.
In January, Flippo, Sharda and K-State entomologist Brian McCornack were awarded a grant for $882,920 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture through its National Robotics Initiative to study the use of robots to detect and defeat insects in crop fields.
According to the USDA, farmers spray nearly $15 billion worth of chemicals annually yet still lose 37% of their crop yield to pest damage.
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