13 FASCINATING FARMING ROBOTS THAT WILL FEED HUMANS OF THE FUTURE

13 Fascinating Farming Robots That Will Feed Humans of the Future
By Adam Clark Estes, Gizmodo, 3 February 2015.

Among other predictions, Interstellar offered us some clues about the future of farming. Long story short: It's all about the robots. From field scouting drones to robotic harvesters, the industry that keeps you fed is becoming totally dominated by autonomous machines.

1. Blue River LettuceBot2

This highly popular robot attaches to a tractor and thins out lettuce fields. It can also spray insecticide and weed the rows between crops. If it could just learn how to make a salad.

2. Agrobot SW6010

This machine picks strawberries with alarming speed and efficiency. Sensors on the robotic arms can actually tell which berries are ripe and which aren't based on the shape and size of the unpicked berry. It even packs them in boxes!

3. Autonomous Tractor Spirit

The all-electric Spirit hay mower by Autonomous Tractor mows hay like nobody's business. It's advertised as being 25 percent more energy efficient and looks highly robotic.

4. Conic System Pro-300

Although it looks like some sort of manufacturing device, the Pro-300 from Conic System is actually a highly specialized sowing robot for greenhouses. Need some seed sowed in some trays? This machine can sow 1,000 trays an hour.

5. Energid Citrus Picking System

This big but low cost orange-picking gadget can clear an orange tree for as little or less than what human labour would cost. That means picking an orange every two to three seconds which might sound slow. But remember: This robot never gets tired.

6. Clearpath Robotics Grizzly

The Grizzly doesn't have a cab, because the all-terrain robot doesn't need a driver. This electric vehicle does the work of a super smart tractor. With attached sensors, it can actually smell where cows peed and treat the grass automatically so that it regrows.

7. ASI Forge Platform

This slim robotic platform can accommodate over 100 attachments, everything from a drill to a fork lift. That makes the ASI Forge Robotic Platform useful across many industries but especially helpful in tight farming situations like orchards or vineyards.

8. Vision Robotics Grapevine Pruner

Pruning is an essential if tedious task when maintaining healthy grapevines, but this robot will do it for you. On the outside it looks like a big blue box; inside there are grapevine snipping arms that only look a little bit scary.

9. Wall-Ye

Wall-Ye is also a grapevine-pruning robot, except Wall-Ye is much cuter than its competitors.

10. Agribotix Hornet

This field scouting drone does it all. Not only does it fly missions autonomously and record video of the fields. It also has infrared sensors that can measure the health of the crops from above.

11. Precision Hawk Lancaster

Ok wait, this field scouting drone really does it all. The Lancaster Platform not only boasts visual sensors but also thermal, multispectral, hyperspectral, and LiDAR technology. The artificially intelligent drone can even land on its own (and on water) as well as change its course mid-flight based on wind patterns.

12. Harvest Automation HV-100

Need a greenhouse friend slash helper? Then the Harvest Automation HV-100 is for you. The tiny little guy is designed to work alongside people, placing plants where they need to be placed, like a farm-bred anti-Roomba.

13. Cucumber Harvester

Much like the strawberry picker above, this smart robot can spot ripe cucumbers on the vine and carefully pick them off. What's extra impressive is that this futuristic technology was developed way back in 2002. It seems the farming industry has been preparing for a robot revolution for quite a while now.

Top image: The Grizzly. Credit: Clearpath Robotics.

[Source: Gizmodo. Top image added.]