Agricultural robots are coming!

Agricultural developed countries, robots seem to have begun to become a new trend in the age of intelligence, in all parts of the world, a number of farms have been put into use in the efficiency of much higher than the farm workers robots.

Agricultural robots are a kind of machine, is the use of robots in agricultural production, is a kind of can be controlled by different program software to adapt to a variety of operations, can feel and adapt to the crop type or environmental changes, there are detection (such as vision, etc.) and algorithms, and other artificial intelligence, such as a new generation of unmanned automatic operation of machinery.

First, the development

Agricultural robots appeared, the development is rapid, many countries in the development of agricultural robots and the development of a variety of types of agricultural robots. At present, Japan is at the top of the world. After entering the 21st century, the new multi-functional agricultural robots have been increasingly widely used, intelligent robots will also be more and more in the vast fields instead of manually complete a variety of agricultural work, the second agricultural revolution will be y developed. Distinguished from industrial robots, it is a new type of multifunctional agricultural machinery. The wide application of agricultural robots has changed the traditional way of agricultural labor to reduce the farmers' labor force and promote the development of modern agriculture.

Second, classification

1, fertilizer robot

The United States, Minnesota, an agricultural machinery company's researchers launched a unique robot, it will start from the actual situation of different soils, the right amount of fertilizer. Its accurate calculation reasonably reduces the total amount of fertilizer applied, reducing agricultural costs. Due to the science of fertilizer application, the groundwater quality can be improved.

2, field weeding robot

German agricultural experts using computers, global positioning system (GPS) and dexterous multi-purpose tractor integrated technology, developed can be accurately applied herbicide weeding robot. First, the robot is led through the field by an agricultural worker. When it reaches a plot with many weeds, the GPS receiver on its body displays a coordinate location map that determines the location of the weeds. The agricultural workers first sequentially enter this information into a portable computer on the spot and then, upon returning to the field, enter the above information dataset into a computer on the tractor. When they later drive the tractor into the field to plow, the weeder robot closely monitors the location of the trip. If it comes to a weed area, the corresponding part of its on-board pole sprayer is immediately activated, allowing the chemical herbicide to be sprayed exactly where it is needed.

3, vegetable field weeding robot

British science and technology personnel to develop a vegetable field weeding robot used by a camera and a computer to identify weeds, vegetables and soil images of the combination of devices, the use of camera scanning and computer image analysis, layer by layer to promote weed control operations. It can work continuously around the clock, and no erosion damage to the soil when weeding. Scientists are also ready to build on this foundation, research and its matching weeding machinery to replace herbicides. Harvesting robot New Holland Agricultural Machinery Company invested 2.5 million U.S. dollars in the development of a multi-purpose automated combine harvesting robot, the famous robotics experts Red Whitaker presided over the design work, he had successfully manufactured to monitor the ground distortions, forecasting earthquakes and detecting volcanic eruption activity signs of the Space Shuttle special robots. Whitaker developed the fully automated combine harvesting robot is very suitable for harvesting crops in the United States in a number of exclusive agricultural reclamation areas in a large area of neatly planned farmland, some of which high-yield fields are more than ten times the yield of the average farmland.

4, picking citrus robot

Spanish science and technology personnel invented this robot by a computer-equipped tractor, a set of optical vision system and a robotic hand, able to determine from the size, shape, and color of the orange is ripe, to determine whether it can be picked. It works very fast, picking 60 oranges per minute and only about 8 by hand. In addition, picking citrus robot through the robot equipped with a video device, can pick down the citrus according to the size of the immediate classification.

5, picking mushrooms robot

Britain is the world's mushroom-producing countries, mushroom cultivation has become the second ranking of horticultural crops. According to statistics, artificial annual mushroom picking volume of 110,000 tons, very profitable. In order to improve the picking speed, so that people gradually get rid of this heavy farm work, the United Kingdom Searle Institute of Agricultural Machinery developed a picking mushroom robot. It is equipped with video cameras and visual image analysis software, used to identify the number of mushrooms picked and belong to which level, so as to determine the operating procedures. After an infrared rangefinder on board the mushroom-picking robot determines the height of the mushrooms in the field, the vacuum handle automatically reaches out to the picking area, bends and twists as needed, and puts the picked mushrooms into the transportation machine that follows it in a timely manner. It can pick 40 mushrooms per minute, twice as fast as manual labor.

6, check the fruit robot

In agricultural production, a variety of fruit check categorization is an essential agricultural work, often need to invest a lot of labor. British researchers at the Silsoe Agricultural Research Institute developed a rugged structure, easy to operate fruit inspection robot, so that the fruit inspection automation. It uses photoelectric image discrimination and lifting inspection machinery combination device, can work in the wet and muddy environment, it can be large tomatoes and small cherries to distinguish, and then check the shipment, but also different sizes of potatoes classification, and will not bruise the skin of the fruit.

7, tomato harvesting robot

Japan's tomato harvesting robot for ripe tomatoes fruit performance for the characteristics of the red, with a color CCD camera as a visual sensor, based on the RGB component to distinguish between fruits and stems and leaves.

8, picking strawberries robot

Japan's National Agriculture and Food Research Institute invented a robot capable of picking strawberries. The robot is equipped with a set of cameras to accurately capture the location of the strawberries, there is supporting software to ensure that the robot is picking strawberries according to the degree of red strawberries are ripe strawberries. Although the robot can only pick strawberries, it can be programmed to pick other fruits such as grapes and tomatoes. The time it takes the robot to pick a strawberry is 9 seconds, and if it is used on a wide scale and can maintain its picking efficiency, it can save farmers 40% of their picking time.

Third, why the emergence of agricultural robots

In the United States, Japan and other countries, agricultural man opening very little, with the scale of agriculture, diversification, precision, labor shortage is becoming more and more obvious. And the reality is that many operational projects are labor-intensive work, coupled with seasonal requirements, the labor shortage is serious. In order to solve this phenomenon problem, agricultural robots came into being.

Fourth, the characteristics of agricultural robots

◆ (1) the delicate nature of agricultural robots work object

Creatures have the characteristics of weak and vulnerable, must be carefully and gently treated and handled. And its variety, complex shape, growth and development in three-dimensional space in different degrees, each other very different.

◆ (2) agricultural robot's operating environment of the non-structural

As the agricultural crop with the different time and space, the robot's working environment is changing, unknown, is an open environment. The crop growing environment is directly affected by natural conditions such as season, atmosphere and time of day, in addition to the constraints of topographical conditions such as garden and inclination. This requires bio-agricultural robots not only to have processing capabilities corresponding to the flexibility of the organism, but also to be able to adapt to the vagaries of the natural environment. Agricultural robots are required to have considerable intelligence in terms of vision, knowledge reasoning and judgment.

◆ (3) the complexity of the operation of the agricultural robot action

Agricultural robots are generally operating, moving at the same time, walking in the agricultural field is not connected to the starting point and the end point of the shortest distance, but has a narrow range, a longer distance and across the entire surface of the field and other characteristics.

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◆ (4) Users of agricultural robots

The users of agricultural robots are farmers, not engineers with knowledge of mechanical and electronic, so the agricultural robot must be highly reliable and easy to operate.

(5) Price characteristics of agricultural robots

Industrial robots require a large investment by the factory or industrial group to pay, while agricultural robots are mainly self-employed, it is difficult to popularize if not low price.

The use of robots in agricultural production has many benefits: it can increase labor productivity; solve the problem of labor shortage; improve the safety and health environment of agricultural producers; improve the quality of operations and so on.

V. Development status of agricultural harvesting robots

After the emergence of agricultural robots, the development is rapid, many countries in the development and development of agricultural robots, the emergence of multiple types of agricultural robots. Nowadays, the new multi-functional agricultural robots are increasingly widely used, intelligent robots will also be more and more in the vast fields instead of manual labor to complete a variety of agricultural work.

◆ 1. The status of foreign agricultural machinery

At present, the agricultural developed countries fruit and vegetable harvesting robot research has made great progress, but there is still a long way to go from the practical and commercialization. France is one of the first countries to study fruit harvesting robots. Japan has made rapid progress in harvesting robot research in recent years, but it has not yet been truly commercialized. The Netherlands harvesting robot research work is also in front of many countries, but the study of fruit and vegetable species is not much.

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At present, harvesting robots have not been truly applied mainly because:

1) the recognition rate of fruit and picking rate is not high, the damage rate is larger;

2) the average harvesting cycle of fruit is longer;

3) harvesting robots have higher manufacturing costs.

◆ 2. The status of domestic agricultural machinery

China is a large developing agricultural country, agricultural issues have always been a fundamental issue related to China's economic and social development.

But there is still a gap between our agricultural robots and foreign countries in terms of precision, efficiency and stability.

With the new mode of agricultural production and the application of new technologies, robots will be increasingly used in agricultural production. The use of robots in agriculture is a new way to qualitatively improve labor productivity, but also a sign of the development of agricultural machinery products and technology.

However, due to the seasonality of agricultural production, the price of agricultural products, the complexity of agricultural operations and other characteristics of the agricultural robot cost-effective, intelligent and put forward high requirements, become a constraint on the application of agricultural robotics research bottleneck. Therefore, agricultural robotics technology will be one of the key research content in the new century.