And so it begins! The January 14th episode of Robots Podcast features an interview with Joe Jones, CTO of Harvest Automation (previously with iRobot).
Harvest Automation didn't start out with the idea of building robots for greenhouse operations, instead they looked around for a market where their initial efforts, to develop what was essentially a larger, more powerful version of the Roomba (without the vacuum), would be applicable outside of the initial context, instead of their having to start from a blank slate for each application.
They settled on agriculture, beginning with a machine to move potted plants around, operating alongside human workers. It isn't hard to imagine how this platform might develop in various directions to perform other horticultural tasks, eventually evolving into a scalable system capable of applying intensive methods to large land areas. That's not the stated goal of Harvest Automation, but the profit motive may very well lead them in that direction.
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
the ascendency of Arduino
Engadget recently posted an embedded Vimeo video consisting of the earliest participants in the Arduino project, talking about how it got started.
Similarly, a search of YouTube with "arduino" as the search term results in over 5,000 hits.
Having had difficulty wrapping my head around the Arduino phenomena, I prefer to let the team tell their own story (2016/May/10: now sourced on YouTube)...
Arduino The Documentary (2010) English HD from gnd on Vimeo.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
changes...new blog
RobotsPodcast.com has closed their forum (probably due to a low rate of participation), and has also partnered with Robots.Net, a venerable robotics related website.
Members there are automatically set up with blogs, consequently I have a new one http://robots.net/person/cultibot/, which I anticipate using more than this one henceforth, although I'll probably continue to bring relevant material here as well.
In that vein, the latest episode of RobotsPodcast features Joe Jones of Harvest Automation. Mr. Jones was employee #1 at iRobot, and is the creator of the Roomba, which in the interview he describes as constituting a "beautiful island" because the technology it utilizes is far different from what would be needed for other domestic devices it inspires people to ask for. Mr. Jones believes agriculture offers better opportunities for reuse of technologies developed for an initial use case.
Members there are automatically set up with blogs, consequently I have a new one http://robots.net/person/cultibot/, which I anticipate using more than this one henceforth, although I'll probably continue to bring relevant material here as well.
In that vein, the latest episode of RobotsPodcast features Joe Jones of Harvest Automation. Mr. Jones was employee #1 at iRobot, and is the creator of the Roomba, which in the interview he describes as constituting a "beautiful island" because the technology it utilizes is far different from what would be needed for other domestic devices it inspires people to ask for. Mr. Jones believes agriculture offers better opportunities for reuse of technologies developed for an initial use case.
Friday, December 03, 2010
go have a look at RobotsPodcast.com
Having discovered the Robots Podcast, and its associated website, I no longer feel such a need to continue posting here. I have made my point as well as I can expect to in words alone. If I am to continue to exert effort towards the vision outlined here, it should be directed towards the development of hardware and/or software.
That's not to say that I'm closing this blog or will never post here again, but it can no longer be the central focus of my efforts with regard to robotics, and any further posts are likely to be mere pointers to something interesting elsewhere, without much in the way of new content.
It's a "brave new world" out there, with many encouraging (and a few worrisome) things happening. Check out the Robots Podcast website and get started with bringing yourself up to speed with what's happening in the field.
That's not to say that I'm closing this blog or will never post here again, but it can no longer be the central focus of my efforts with regard to robotics, and any further posts are likely to be mere pointers to something interesting elsewhere, without much in the way of new content.
It's a "brave new world" out there, with many encouraging (and a few worrisome) things happening. Check out the Robots Podcast website and get started with bringing yourself up to speed with what's happening in the field.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
DARPA consortium casts a wide net
A consortium of U.S. government agencies, lead by DARPA, has jointly issued a solicitation for small business proposals...
Joint-Agency SBIR Funding Opportunity Announcement
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-10-279.html
The HTML title element for that page contains the following:
"PAR-10-279: Robotics Technology Development and Deployment [RTD2] (R43)"
The participating agencies are:
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), (http://www.defenselink.mil/)
National Science Foundation (NSF) (http://www.nsf.gov/)
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Each agency's interest in the initiative is described within the document.
I noted the presence of USDA on the list with extreme interest, as you might expect, and am pleased to report that an effort to develop the sort of system I've previously described (replacing traction with dextrous manipulation) should be fundable within their guidelines.
Found on Danger Room
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/10/darpa-leads-push-for-near-human-robot-doctors-farmers-troops/
Reposted from
http://www.robotspodcast.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=982
Joint-Agency SBIR Funding Opportunity Announcement
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-10-279.html
The HTML title element for that page contains the following:
"PAR-10-279: Robotics Technology Development and Deployment [RTD2] (R43)"
The participating agencies are:
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), (http://www.defenselink.mil/)
National Science Foundation (NSF) (http://www.nsf.gov/)
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Each agency's interest in the initiative is described within the document.
I noted the presence of USDA on the list with extreme interest, as you might expect, and am pleased to report that an effort to develop the sort of system I've previously described (replacing traction with dextrous manipulation) should be fundable within their guidelines.
Found on Danger Room
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/10/darpa-leads-push-for-near-human-robot-doctors-farmers-troops/
Reposted from
http://www.robotspodcast.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=982
Monday, August 16, 2010
reposted (with edits) from the RobotsPodcast forum
When I imagine robots tending land, it's nearly always machines that are supported from above, on a beam that itself is supported by wheels running either on rails or in troughs that double as a delivery system for water, or on long legs that always only step on particular spots, so as to avoid compressing most of the surface, but in any case a machine capable of lifting even a record setting pumpkin or of uprooting small shrubs.
My interest is in improving agricultural practice, and I think robotics presents the approach most likely to serve that end, really the only approach with any chance of widespread success. (For me, robotic tractors are merely annoying, except as they help generate experience with autonomous navigation in an uncontrolled environment, applicable to other systems.)
Conversely, agriculture may be the largest potential market for robotics, one so large that it could drive the development of self-reconfiguring and self-reproducing robotic factories. This depends on the total cost of operation using robotic devices coming in below the total cost of operation using conventional methods, which includes increasingly expensive fuel for tractors (which might be replaced by solar-generated electricity in the robotic scenario).
I'm very encouraged to see robotics finally gathering momentum, and have hope that some of that momentum will find its way towards radically transforming agriculture.
My interest is in improving agricultural practice, and I think robotics presents the approach most likely to serve that end, really the only approach with any chance of widespread success. (For me, robotic tractors are merely annoying, except as they help generate experience with autonomous navigation in an uncontrolled environment, applicable to other systems.)
Conversely, agriculture may be the largest potential market for robotics, one so large that it could drive the development of self-reconfiguring and self-reproducing robotic factories. This depends on the total cost of operation using robotic devices coming in below the total cost of operation using conventional methods, which includes increasingly expensive fuel for tractors (which might be replaced by solar-generated electricity in the robotic scenario).
I'm very encouraged to see robotics finally gathering momentum, and have hope that some of that momentum will find its way towards radically transforming agriculture.
Monday, August 02, 2010
a plant positioning system based on suspension
Something which could be accomplished through robotics that couldn't economically be accomplished using human labor would be maximizing the utilization of a very limited surface area (and the sunlight it receives), by repositioning plants to maintain ideal spacing as they grow, and as some are removed while others remain and new plants (or seeds) inserted among those already there.
This can be done using pots of various sizes on a platform, repotting plants as necessary. It might also be done using a grid or honeycomb-like support frame, each cell of which is large enough to accommodate a single mature plant of the largest variety to be grown this way, but which is also divisible into smaller cells - rectangular in the case of a grid, or a combination of hexagonal and triangular subsections in the case of a honeycomb - for seedlings and smaller plants.
This approach, because it would mean discrete positioning, would lend itself to automation. It would also position the soil surface at the same level for all plants, rather than having smaller pots hidden and shaded by larger pots. While something resembling repotting would still be needed, because a suspension system can have a soft underside, such as a loosely woven fabric pouch, made of biodegradable fiber, hung from a rigid frame, that repotting could be nothing more traumatic for the plant than positioning a smaller frame within a larger one and filling in between with potting soil, leaving the pouch in place to decompose while the plant's roots grow through it, a procedure which could be accomplished robotically, without the need for high precision. This can be repeated until the stem of the plant grows to the point that it no longer fits through the smallest subframe initially employed, which usually won't happen.
Like pots on a platform, when a plant is removed from the framework, the soil is typically removed with it, which can help with the control of pests and diseases. (Used soil, containing whatever is left of the pouches, which can simply be cut loose from the frames pieces, can be sanitized by inclusion in compost, which can hold a temperature between 120 and 160 degrees F, for several days, the peak temperature depending on the scale of the compost operation as well as on the initial ingredients and how it's managed.)
This can be done using pots of various sizes on a platform, repotting plants as necessary. It might also be done using a grid or honeycomb-like support frame, each cell of which is large enough to accommodate a single mature plant of the largest variety to be grown this way, but which is also divisible into smaller cells - rectangular in the case of a grid, or a combination of hexagonal and triangular subsections in the case of a honeycomb - for seedlings and smaller plants.
This approach, because it would mean discrete positioning, would lend itself to automation. It would also position the soil surface at the same level for all plants, rather than having smaller pots hidden and shaded by larger pots. While something resembling repotting would still be needed, because a suspension system can have a soft underside, such as a loosely woven fabric pouch, made of biodegradable fiber, hung from a rigid frame, that repotting could be nothing more traumatic for the plant than positioning a smaller frame within a larger one and filling in between with potting soil, leaving the pouch in place to decompose while the plant's roots grow through it, a procedure which could be accomplished robotically, without the need for high precision. This can be repeated until the stem of the plant grows to the point that it no longer fits through the smallest subframe initially employed, which usually won't happen.
Like pots on a platform, when a plant is removed from the framework, the soil is typically removed with it, which can help with the control of pests and diseases. (Used soil, containing whatever is left of the pouches, which can simply be cut loose from the frames pieces, can be sanitized by inclusion in compost, which can hold a temperature between 120 and 160 degrees F, for several days, the peak temperature depending on the scale of the compost operation as well as on the initial ingredients and how it's managed.)
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