Automation in agricultural equipment and technology
Agriculture has drawn more attention towards it than ever, since the outbreak of Covid - 19. While many elements of economy such as trade, travel and tourism, education went downhill to some extent, agriculture secured its place of importance in the economy due to the silent but gigantic role it plays in driving away the hunger of humankind. People were encouraged by the government to grow food crops in their home gardens and lands to utilise their "Stay Home" time for something fruitful. This is a time where people all over the world invest more time and finance on agriculture.
On the other hand, finding sustainable methodologies to satisfy the hunger of the rapidly growing population has become paramount since the recent history. UN estimates that the world population will rise from 7.3 billion to 9.7 billion by 2050. Therefore, increasing the efficiency of world food production is of massive importance.
When it comes to food production, agricultural machinery plays an enormous part throughout the entire process. With the advancement of technology, agricultural equipment has also undergone a marvellous evolution from traditional mamoties, sickles, ploughs, bullock driven equipment and human driven tractors to drones, autonomous tractors, robotic arms and many others with high technology. In developed countries, these equipment are being deployed in many stages of food production process including mowing, pruning and seeding, spraying and thinning, weed control, harvesting and picking and sorting and packing. These automated equipment has become a better remedy for the lack of workforce suffered by the developed countries. Since the traditional methods struggle to keep up with the efficiencies required by the market to meet the increasing demand for food, necessity for those equipment is arising day by day.
Automated agricultural equipment have set new trends in many stages of field crop cultivation.
Autonomous precision seeding
This is a robotic application combined with geo mapping that helps the tractor with robotic seeding attachment place seeds precisely in the relevant locations and at accurate depths by generating a map that shows the soil properties at every point of the field,giving every seed the best chance to grow. This reduces the seed wastage that occurs in the traditional method of seed sowing by a great degree.
Crop monitoring and analysis
Thanks to this new technology, farmers do not have to walk miles and miles around huge fields to see if their crops are in good condition. New sensor and geo mapping technologies enable farmers to get a higher level of data with the aid of ground robots and Drones. They come in packages of robotic hardware and analysis software so the farmer can conveniently collect crop data by moving the drone to the field using the software on a smartphone or a tablet.
Fertilising and irrigation
We know that the traditional mannual irrigation methods consume a lot of water, resulting in water wastage. This could be greatly reduced with "Robot Assisted Precision Irrigation" which uses autonomous ground robots that navigate between the rows of crop and pour water directly at the base of each plant.
The robotic machine developed by Rowbot Systems LLC, USA which moves easily between rows of corn and targets Nitrogen fertiliser directly at the base of each plant, has provided a better solution to the problem that the corn plants grow too quickly to accurately fertilise them.
Crop weeding and spraying
Manual weeding and spraying herbicides are the most common methods of removing weeds from farm yards. This not only consumes a lot of herbicide,time and labour but also not environmentally friendly. AgBot II, developed by QUT researchers and engineering, Australia is a solar powered Micro spraying robot that uses computer vision technology to detect weeds and then spray a targeted drop of herbicide into them. If there's any methodology to kill weeds without a single drop of chemical, it would a great step ahead towards sustainable agriculture. Weeding robots that use LASERS to kill weeds are now being developed to accomplish it.
Harvesting and picking
Harvesting a crop is as important as all the other stages in the production process of a food crop as it affects the quality of the yield very much. Harvesting soft fruits like apple, grape & strawberry is not as easy as harvesting crops like rice, wheat, barley & corn with a combined harvester. Many countries including Belgium are working on robotic arms that are capable of picking soft fruits like strawberries delicately with zero damage. These robotic harvesting applications reduce the wastage of harvest and crops being left in the field, and thereby improve the size and quality of the yield.
Not only in crop cultivation, these automated equipment have revolutionised animal husbandry too. Farmers in both New Zealand and Ireland are making use of Drones to round up their sheep. Cobot-assisted milking has made cow milking healthier and more efficient.
These are just a few examples for how agricultural robots enhance the efficiency of crop cultivation and animal farming by saving time, money, human labour and making dull, slow and repetitive tasks easy for farmers. If developed as well as developing countries like Sri Lanka focus more attention on empowering farmers with sufficient technical knowledge to handle automated agricultural equipment, encouraging innovative minds to do more innovations in agricultural robotics and linking traditional agriculture with modern technology in this era where humans are planning to build up colonies in space, it won't take too long to reach whole new dimensions of agriculture, which is the most healthful, most useful and the most noble employment of man as stated by George Washington.
References :
1.https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j...
2.https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j...
3.https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j...
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