Odd that tethered drones would be preferable over a robotic arm attached to the same cart?
this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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Precise robot arm control is a surprisingly hard problem. I can see some advantages to being able to move freely in 3D
And you'd still have to maneuver the truck more with the arm. With the tethered drone, they could pull up to a tree and take on three-ish trees from one spot.
Sounds interesting but is there somewhere aside from that garbage website I can read about this?
https://spectrum.ieee.org/video-friday
I'll try not to post links to the birdsite again.
Thanks! I’m actually pretty excited about this technology although as with any automation it will come with challenges to ensure that wealth is distributed fairly.
Putting those aside for now, the technology is limited today but it seems as though it may soon be able to perform tasks human workers cannot. I’m hoping that eventually smaller, more mobile robots may be able to maintain and harvest dense, diverse agricultural systems that are too labor intensive to compete against today’s modern farms.
Do you know this project? https://www.twistedfields.com/copy-of-research
It's the most solarpunk of the ag robots I know of.
Cool stuff. I worked on a farm that had a converted solar tractor at one point.
But what I’m envisioning is more like Boston dynamics style robotics in a small package that can climb and/or fly. This will allow harvesting taller tree crops in a way that is essentially impossible today. But it may be a while before that technology is cheap and accessible enough for small-scale actors to develop these types of tools. The powers that be won’t pursue something that radical.