Robots and Food

 

Figure 1: Jax the Robot

Have you ever wondered how farmers grow so many fruits and vegetables so quick? Or ever wondered how there's so much milk in the super markets? Well farmers get to use this cool method called PRECISION AGRICULTURE to help them grow a lot of fruits and vegetables and bring a whole bunch of milk to super markets. But the coolest part is that they use PRECISION AGRICULTURE TECHNOLOGY, also known as ROBOTS, to do all of this work quickly and put as much fruits, vegetables and milk in the store. That's where I come in. My name is Jax and I'm a precision agriculture robot. I'm a robot in training so I can't do all the cool stuff that my friends can do but I'll show you how they work while we go through the farm.

Cool Types of Farming Robots
Other robots don't look like me because we all have our own jobs; just like how humans have jobs but they're not all the same humans and they all don't have the same job. Some of us work on the ground or crops where the fruits and vegetables grow. The FIELD ROBOTS do most of the GROUND work, so they help in planting the seeds in the ground and harvesting, which is picking the fruits and vegetables that are ready to eat. While planting and harvesting, these robots take data from the crops by taking the crop's measurements and checking their hydration level to see if they need more water or not. The farmer takes the data to know which crops are good and which are not.

Figure 2: Friend Optimus Prime

The most famous ground robots and the biggest robots farmers use are tractors. These tractors are AUTOMATED which means that they are able to work all by themselves. Similar to how my friend Optimus Prime work, they don't need a human inside to drive them. AUTONOMOUS TRACTORS have the same job as the smaller robots but they work on much larger fields such as corn fields, which plays a big role in precision agriculture because it allows farmers grow a lot of crops very quick.

Figure 3: Veera the Drone

The other type of precision agriculture technology are AERIAL ROBOTS, also known as DRONES. Drones also help farmers feed the crops but they also take data of the crops and livestock from taking picture and videos of the crops and livestock. My friend Veera in Figure 3 watches over the farmer's livestock, which are the animals in a farm, whenever the farmer can not watch o ver them. Farmers can see if there are any predators or thieves around and get help to protect their crops and livestock. In other words, drones checks the status of the farm kinda like how dogs were once used to guard the cows and sheeps.

Why are They Important...?

Figure 4: Avery and Avril the Automomous twin Tractors

Robots that works on farms help farmers in many many ways. Ground robots that works on the field are like doctors; before they work on their patients, they have to know what is going and know how they are able to help them. Ground robots takes data of the plants before they work on them to see if they are sick or if they need food. They feed them and take the data to the farmers so that the farmers know which plants are good enough to be in the supermarket. This gives farmers more "hands" on the field which means more help and better cared fruits and vegetables in the store. Autonomous robots are great on larger fields like corn fields because they work in bigger sections. Because they work in larger sections, farmers can carry large amounts of crops probably the size of your room back to the farmhouse. In figure 4 of autonomous tractors, my twin friends Avery and Avril pick up LARGE amount of grain WITHOUT STOPPING because once one tractor cut the grain they grind it and put it in a container in the other tractor and keep going until the container is full. This saves time for farmers and allows them to make more crops in a short period of time. Drones are the eyes of the farm and keeps the farmers updated on what's going on. It's important to have them because farmers can't watch the entire farm all by himself and they certainly can't run around the farm the entire day... they'll get tired. Precision agriculture robots do a lot of work on the farm and really help our farmers.

Well I hope you enjoyed looking at the cool parts of a farm and enjoyed me as your guide of Precision Agriculture Technology.
I think drones are SUPER DUPER COOL because they get to fly all over the farm and it's so awesome. Which one is your favorite Precision Agriculture Robot?



References:
Grose. T.K. (2015). Next green revolution. American society for engineering education. 25(4). 28-31. Need doi
Crow, J.M. (2012). Down on the robofarm. New scientist. 216(2888). 42-45. Need doi

Thomas, J. (2017). Automating the farm. New internationalist,(507),24-25. Need doi.

Images are from google search