Rural agricultural practices in the UK maybe in for an automation invasion. Robots, instead of humans, will pick and sort through vegetables and fruits, milk cows and guide farm vehicles
RESEARCHERS at the Silsoe Research
Institute near London have developed
automatic devices which can carry out
farm operations at lower costs and are
more efficient. The catch in designing
the system was to develop machines
which could deal with both living and
non-living matter and change their
mode of operation according to need
(Global Technoscan, September. 1-15).
In achieving such a high degree of
sensitivity, computer vision systems
proved to be very helpful. For the
purpose of picking mushrooms, and
that too with precision at the exact stage,
the Silsoe team has developed a vision
system which detects mushrooms by
their circular and dome-shaped
appearance. Selecting mushrooms for
harvesting is dependent on their sizes
and positions.
The device is fitted with a monochrome video camera which produces
images made of 256 shades of black,
grey and white. This helps in identifying
and grading the different types of mushrooms to which the system assigns a reference number. The computer system
thereafter helps in deciding which
mushrooms to pick and the best way to
do so. The robot places a suction
cup over the mushroom to be
picked and turns it away from the
neighbouring mushroom, twisting
and detaching it from the growth
medium. The automated harvesting would save about two-thirds of
the time normally taken to do the
job manually. The team plans to
carry out developmental research
projects on other farm operations
like trimming.
Meanwhile, another group at
the Institute is working on developing a robot which would help
milk cows. Cows can be milked at
any time of the day by these efficient machines. The cow to be
milked enters a stall which is automatically adjusted according to the
size of the animal. When the cow
presses against the robot, it lifts its arms
and fits teat cups in place. When air
pressure reduces, the robot's arms sag to
the ground allowing the cow to walk out
of the stall. The robots have achieved a
success rate of 87 per cent in attaching
teat cups. The system would reduce
labour and voluntary milking by the
cows, and will increase the yield of milk
by 15 per cent.
A third Silsoe team has developed a
robotic manipulator which not only
picks tomatoes but also grades and
packs them into plastic trays. Analysis
of infrared images help to guide the
vehicle to a row of plants allowing automatic movement up and down the rows
at a speed of about two m/sec. The robot
could even double as a medium for
spraying pesticides in the case of horticultural crops.
There are many more such ideas
lining-up at the Silsoe Institute which,
once actualised and marketed, would
transform the idyllic image of an
easy-going, slow-paced farm. Farms in
developed countries would look like
Japanese car manufacturing units,
where the idea of automated farms
took seed.
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