The future of Agriculture - Pospero Farmbot

[TerryK]

aProspero the Swarming Farmbot Wants to Show You the Future of Agriculture


Agriculture is big business. But the future of big farming isn’t in massive machinery, but swarms of smart, cheap 'bots seeding, tending and harvesting fields one plant at a time
By Clay DillowPosted 06.15.2012 at 9:00 am10 Comments

Meet ProsperoDavid Dourhout via Discovery News

Whether conducted by an industrial farming outfit or a small, independent farmer, agriculture is all about yield. Per-acre production makes or break the year, and taken at the macro level it impacts global markets and can lead to humanitarian crises. And while agriculture already happens at the field-by-field level, David Dorhout wants to make agriculture even more precise. Think: plant-by-plant farming, optimized on a seed-by-seed basis.
Who can manage such a precise, immense workload? Why, the diminutive hexapod robot named Prospero, of course.
Dorhout currently works in the biotech industry, but his side project and passion for the last few years has been robotics. Built as the test platform for a larger robotic farming system, Prospero is just one of what will eventually become a swarm of planting, tending, and harvesting robots running game theory and swarm behavior algorithms to help optimize every inch of arable space in a given field. Dorhout has launched his own company, Dorhout R&D, to pursue this vision, and he’s hoping that as the larger robot revolution unfolds that farmers will once again be at the forefront of technological revolution.
“Looking back at history agriculture seems kind of quaint,” Dorhout says. “But I realized growing up around a farm in Iowa that rather than being one of the last industries to adopt technology, agriculture is one of the earliest adopters.”

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Dorhout points to technologies that we now take for granted--things like the diesel engine, modern statistics, genetic engineering--that trace their origins back to a common impetus: the need to reliably grow more and better food. The ongoing robotics revolution is leaving its mark on agriculture already, as self-driving, GPS-equipped tractors now till land autonomously and other existing farm machinery becomes increasingly computerized and automated. A single human farmer can now maintain well more than 1,000 acres of farmland each year, using bigger and better farm equipment to increase productivity.
But to Dorhout, the simultaneous computerization and intensification of existing farm technologies doesn’t make much sense. If you trace the development of agricultural technology along its entire arc, there’s always been a focus on increasing the individual farmer’s output: bigger tractors mean one human can cover more ground in less time, and huge irrigation apparatuses mean a single farmer can keep huge amounts of plants watered. But the future, Dorhout says, means moving in the exact opposite direction: smaller, smarter, and hands-free.
“What I’m proposing is that you take the piece of machinery and you essentially explode it, so instead of having one piece of machinery you have maybe hundreds--many small robots instead of one big one,” Dorhout says. Previously, humans had to direct the machinery, so fewer (and bigger) machines meant fewer humans were needed to operate them. Now, the falling cost of microcomputers means intelligence can be spread across many machines that work both independently and together. Such technology could lead to a new farming paradigm where decisions are made on a plant-by-plant basis rather than acre-by-acre or field-by-field. Such a system could cut waste down to nearly nothing and push yields-per-acre through the roof. Prospero is Dorhout’s first step toward this vision.
Prospero is a lone prototype planter robot designed to work with other identical robots in a swarm (Dorhout’s formal education happens to center around insect biology and behavior). In order to create something that the average farmer could actually use and service, Dorhout wanted simplicity and low cost. He built Prospero from an off-the-shelf robotics platform called a Boe-Bot packing a Parallax microcontroller--basically a small robot brain that costs something like eight bucks, he says. He wrote an advanced walking program that allows Prospero to move in any direction without turning its body. A sensor array packed into its belly--LEDs, a photo resistor, etc.--and other augmentations like a seed-hopper and a fertilizer spraying apparatus round out its hardware.
The end result is a somewhat awkward but friendly-looking farmbot that can communicate with other robots around it via weak radio signals. It requires no GPS or complex computer vision algorithm--it sees only what is directly beneath it, taking the world in through this very small window. If it detects that there is no seed planted in the soil below (or in the immediate vicinity), it drills a hole down to the optimum depth, deposits a seed, sprays it with just the right preprogrammed amount of fertilizer and nutrients, covers the seed, and then marks the spot with a shot of “paint” that the other robots can detect should they walk over the same patch of soil.
Every robot in the swarm is doing this simultaneously. If a robot passes over an area where a seed is already planted, it keeps moving. If not, it plants. Should a single robot come across a large swath of earth where it detects few seeds have been planted, it can signal others to come help it. If it encounters an area that seems to be already heavily planted, it can tell nearby robots to move away from it. Each robot doesn’t have to know the exact position of the others, which cuts down on a lot of the processing and data crunching that can make distributed robotics like this difficult. Yet the entire field gets planted, not necessarily in straight rows but with seed spacing optimized and a minimum of wasted space, fertilizer, and human effort.

“I love these swarm technologies because they are so simple but you can get such complex behaviors,” Dorhout says. And because they don’t rely on complicated technologies or expensive robotics components, they’re something farmers of the very near future could actually use, and even enhance. “They’ll adapt it, and that’s important,” he says. “They’re the original hackers. They’ll make it better.”
Prospero is just a first step, and a very preliminary one. Even Dorhout isn’t quite sure how the next phase will take shape. He envisions a planter like Prospero working side by side with other specialized 'bots: a tender robot that can maintain crops around the clock, monitoring for and combating pests and disease and ensuring soil conditions and moisture remain optimal, and a harvester that would only reap the crops plant-by-plant as they are ready, replacing today’s wholesale harvesting methods that always lose some percentage of yield by harvesting too early or too late for some plants in the field. The idea of course is to integrate all of these into a single robotic system that can handle everything from planting to harvest, perhaps organized around a kind of shepherd robot that is responsible for overseeing the entire system and that the farmer could direct as he or she sees fit. After all, the idea here isn’t to remove the human farmer from the system, but to make modern agriculture rise up to meet the demands of a growing global population. If that’s going to happen, farming has to become smarter.
“When you’re sitting in a chair on a tractor, you’re not doing the brainwork,” Dorhout says. “A swarm of robots allows you to focus on increasing the productivity of, literally, each square foot. This won’t solve all of our problems, but it definitely gives us a little breathing room until we work things out.”

[bw]

to make modern agriculture rise up to meet the demands of a growing global population

Kicking this particular can a little farther down the road.

This won’t solve all of our problems, but it definitely gives us a little breathing room until we work things out.

Why work anything out, when we have breathing room?

[marsh]

Can you say "row crops"?

[China Connection]

Yeah sure provided the economy goes up. Take Africa for example. You can get someone to work for $2 a day. Are you going to tell me that they will use robots?

[TerryK]

Marsh: The whole point is not to have row crops. The plan is for robots to plant, tend and harvest is this more efficient way. Every plant receives individual care. Kind of like automated square foot gardening. If they wanted rows it would be an easy matter to change the program, but they dont'.

CC: If they can get someone to work for $2 a day why aren't they leading the world in food production?
This method is for the US with the goal of a thousand acres or more being managed by one person. We already have large combines that could drive themselves using GPS but this idea stresses more care for individual plants to increase yield. Individually plants seed. Individually fertilizes and sprays each plant, and individually harvests. Kind of like square foot gardening for a thousand acres. Don't know if it will prove practical or not but the concept is interesting.

[naturallysweet]

If this ever takes off, then there will be a backlash. After all, it takes jobs away from illegal aliens.

[imaginative]

At least they wont be collecting welfare, living 30 to a house and driving around drunk.

And maybe the "para espanol diga numero dos" at the beginning of every corporate phone menu will fade into obscurity

[bw]

Individually plants seed. Individually fertilizes and sprays each plant, and individually harvests. Kind of like square foot gardening for a thousand acres.

The energy input per plant must be enormous. Where is all that power coming from?

[Argonath]

He looks like....

http://www.empireonline.com/images/f.../photos/63.jpg

[marsh]

I just can't see these things moving through a field of alfalfa or a pasture one plant at a time.

[Wildweasel]

The energy input per plant must be enormous. Where is all that power coming from?

Should be solar powered. It would be the most effective way to do it.

I've said for years that this is the only way to put an end to the need for illegals for agricutural work. Done some concepts for what might be workable for some agricultural work, but it was largely all just mental excercise. But I'm glad to see that someone who was in a position to see the concepts through to construction.

I wish them and their robo-field hand alot of luck.

WW

[cleobc]

Maybe some use in intensive agriculture, small areas. The investment would be very steep. Radical changes come slowly to ag. Even the tractor wasn't an overnight success. Many things will continue to be tended to in traditional ways, even if these become somewhat affordable, because the needs of different crops vary.

I've been told the horse is obsolete for ranching, mainly by people who live in flatter areas like Oklahoma and Texas, and who use ATVs in their operations. The horse continues to be absolutely irreplaceable on many ranches in the west and I don't foresee them being phased out any time soon. Any day of the week you can see cowboys hauling horses to move cattle around here, and motor vehicles have been available for 100 years. Trucks just make it easier to the horses nearer the cattle and to haul cattle long distances. So some things don't change despite modern advances, and for good reason.

[China Connection]

Everything is cost and wages are going down not up. For a long time now farming has not paid much. Prices are going up now on food but so are production costs. With a crash in the dollar coming and a collapse of the welfare state a few years down the track this high teck stuff will be a thing of the past.

With Africa farmers do not want to spend on fertilizer as they need to see a return on investment. With most living on next to nothing who is paying big dollars for food? Wages would have to go up to cover production costs and return a profit. Factory products are produced mainly where labor is cheap these days. Food goes the same way.


Most food crops are sold close to the farms. WHy? Freight costs! Stuff that is exported distances are things that can be dried and shiped in a confined space like grain. Grain prices are a joke.

[TerryK]

Everything is cost and wages are going down not up. For a long time now farming has not paid much. Prices are going up now on food but so are production costs. With a crash in the dollar coming and a collapse of the welfare state a few years down the track this high teck stuff will be a thing of the past.

With Africa farmers do not want to spend on fertilizer as they need to see a return on investment. With most living on next to nothing who is paying big dollars for food? Wages would have to go up to cover production costs and return a profit. Factory products are produced mainly where labor is cheap these days. Food goes the same way.


Most food crops are sold close to the farms. WHy? Freight costs! Stuff that is exported distances are things that can be dried and shiped in a confined space like grain. Grain prices are a joke.

CC most of what you are saying must only apply to Africa, not the US.
All the things everyone is saying about robotics in ag were said about the tractor and other farm implements.
The ultimate goal is food production with no human labor at all.

Here is an old article about autopilots for farm machinery in 2004:
SUNNYVALE, Calif., Aug. 3, 2004 -- Trimble (NASDAQ: TRMB) announced today that its AgGPS® Autopilot™ system is now available for combines. The automated steering system uses Global Positioning System (GPS) technology to guide agriculture vehicles in consistent rows for tilling, spraying, applying fertilizers, and now harvesting.
"The AgGPS Autopilot can now be used in every growing application throughout the year, helping growers maintain a competitive edge as well as a greater return on their investment," said Alan Townsend, vice president and general manager of Trimble's Field Solutions Division. "The combine platform addition demonstrates Trimble's commitment to continued improvement and expansion of the AgGPS Autopilot system for all types of precision agricultural operations."
The addition of the Autopilot system for combines offers significant advantages. Growers can automatically steer along a precise path set earlier in the year during planting with centimeter accuracy and repeatability. This allows the driver to guide the combine precisely along the same path during harvesting season.
Wheat grower Harlan Downing of Colby, Kansas, has been using Trimble's high accuracy system for three years. He harvested this year's wheat crop using the Autopilot system to steer his John Deere 9750 STS combine. "Trimble's new feature allows us to follow the same 'A/B' base reference lines we laid down three years ago," said Downing. "Our controlled traffic system now includes the full agricultural lifecycle, from strip till fertilizing to planting, then spraying, and on through harvest. With the Autopilot system, it all comes together."
"We drill our soybeans and wheat, so planting-time tracks are not well defined and hard to see during harvest," adds Downing. "But with Autopilot, that accuracy comes back on line and our productivity is greatly increased."
The Autopilot combine application is also ideal for bed harvest and other in-field operations demanding pinpoint accuracy. The user-friendly system allows operators to focus on other in-field operations and reduce fatigue. As a result, Autopilot greatly improves a grower's efficiency and productivity by operating equipment longer hours over more acres. In addition, Trimble offers Autopilot transfer kits, allowing the transfer of a system already installed on a tractor or sprayer to be easily moved to a combine.
"Autopilot is powered by Trimble's high performance GPS-based navigation controller connected to a combine's power steering mechanism. An in-cab display allows growers to select field patterns, previously set during planting, and view operating parameters. It is centimeter accuracy made simple," said Tim Funk, product manager, Trimble. "With the new Autopilot combine platform, growers will get the same great service and reliability they've come to expect from Trimble and our worldwide distribution channel."
The initial combine platforms include the John Deere 9x50/9x60 STS and the Case IH 2388. The John Deere 9x50/9x60 STS combine began shipping on July 30, 2004; the Case IH 2388 combine, is expected to begin on Sept. 1, 2004

[China Connection]

The U.S. will be a different place soon. Conditions like below are only a few years off. People have to have the buying power to pay for food.

..............................................

What was it like to live in the big city during the Depression? We will find out tomorrow as we simulate urban strife during the 1930s. For our activity in class tomorrow, your task is to READ the following information concerning life in the city during the Depression and the overview of the class activity.
During the Depression, life was very difficult for farmers, but it wasn’t much better in the cities, where fourteen million people lived in crowded, unheated, unsanitary tenements. In a letter to Harry Hopkins, the director of the Civil Works Administration, Martha Gellhorn described the unemployed workers and their families:

“This picture is so grim that whatever words I use will seem hysterical and exaggerated. And I find them all in the same shape - fear, fear driving them into a state of semi-collapse cracking nerves; and an overpowering terror of the future.... They can't pay rent and are evicted. They are watching their children grow thinner and thinner; fearing the cold for children who have neither coats nor shoes; wondering about coal.”

As the Depression deepened, cities attracted beaten people from all parts of the country. Farmers whose livelihoods had been foreclosed packed up their families and moved into the cities. Hoboes and other itinerants sought shelter in cities during harsh winters. City dwellers themselves were not immune to the rails of the nation. Thousands of unemployed residents who could not pay their rent or mortgages were evicted into the world of public assistance and bread lines. At the peak of the Depression, seventeen thousand families were put out on the street each month. Although residents were given priority over newcomers for local aid, there were too many other residents standing in the same lines waiting for a check or a bowl of soup. Municipal resources were overwhelmed quickly, and city agencies resorted to thinning relief payments to below the cost of living and watering down the soup to help more people over a longer time.

Many cities just ran out of money and were even forced to pay city employees in scrip (a temporary voucher, redeemable for food and other products). At the height of the Depression Chicago had half a million unemployed, and in New York the jobless figure topped a million. With so many taxpayers both jobless and homeless, American cities lost a major source of income. Relief budgets meant to last a year were spent in several months.
At President Hoover's beckoning, charities had stepped in to help ease the burden on municipal resources. Hoover was a firm believer in volunteerism. Feeling that each community was responsible for aiding people in distress, Hoover created programs that bolstered morale and encouraged charity. But the charities were themselves in trouble because they depended on contributions from a public who could not give any more. In many cities philanthropic groups of businessmen mounted relief drives, but the funds collected dwindled quickly as conditions worsened.

In 1930 the International Apple Shippers Association was faced with an oversupply of fruit and came up with a unique solution to a national problem: to clear out their warehouses and give the unemployed a way to make a little money, they sold apples on credit. The ploy worked. Months later a shivering apple vendor could be found standing over a fruit crate on the corner of every major American city. By the end of November there were six thousand people selling apples in New York alone. The trend spread, and suddenly there were pitchmen of all persuasions standing alongside the apple sellers, handling everything from patent medicines to gaudy neckties. There were even chalk artists who drew figures of women on the sidewalks for passersby to appreciate with a few coins. Many cities soon passed ordinances, however, which banned the street vendors as a nuisance to the public.

Crowded living conditions were not uncommon in the working-class home. Extended families were formed who shared the same space, food costs, rent, and even bed- ding: the "hotbed- was a living arrangement in which night workers slept during the day and day workers used the same beds at night. Furnishings in working-class apartments were sparse. There were a few chairs, tables, and boxes that served as dressers. There was rarely any carpeting, and not all homes had hot water. In older buildings heat was pro- vided through coal grates, which forced ten- ants to scour the neighborhood for coal or other fuel. Many people planted subsistence gardens in vacant lots or rooftops to feed themselves when grocery money was really scarce. Twenty thousand of these gardens were reported in Gary, Indiana, alone.
When they could no longer pay the rent and were evicted from their apartments, city dwellers used scraps of lumber and cardboard boxes to build shacks that they could live in. These new shantytowns on the edges of the cities were called Hoovervilles, for President Herbert Hoover, since many blamed him for causing the depression. In public parks, homeless men slept on benches, covering their bodies with "Hoover blankets," or newspapers. "Hoover hogs" were jackrabbits or gophers caught and cooked to replace the traditional Sunday ham. "Hoover villas" were public latrines used for overnight stays. "Hoover flags" were empty pockets turned inside out. Probably unfairly, Americans made the president accountable for their situation, and he became the fall guy-the focus of the abuse.

Hoovervilles had no electricity or running water but were usually built near rivers or fireplugs. They were not supported by the city or government in any way, so moving into such an encampment required no registration or security deposit. Prospective residents simply looked around and picked a spot. City dumps, construction sites, and trash bins pro- vided materials for constructing shelters. The gutted husks of old cars made acceptable homes, as did stacks of fruit boxes and worn tires. If a shelter was built well enough, a resident could sell it. There was always turnover, since people continually came and went. A good pre-built home could easily be worth as much as $50. Despite zoning violations and health hazards, many Hoovervilles were allowed to exist. Some cities even lent tracts of public land for the cultivation of small gardens. Not everybody was tolerant, however. Many Hoovervilles were raided and burned down by sheriffs and vigilante groups.

By 1933 millions of Americans (we'll never really know how many) were desperate. Out of work and with his family depending on him, the breadwinner, the patriarch, the father/husband bore the brunt of the despair. When he couldn't provide for his family, he felt ashamed and humiliated. Many of these men abandoned their families and became what one has called "a generation of wanderers," vagabonds, or hobos. Unable to find work and seeing that each job they applied for had hundreds of seekers, these shabby, disillusioned men wandered aimlessly without funds, begging, picking over refuse in city dumps, and finally getting up the courage to stand and be seen publicly - in a bread line for free food. To accommodate these shamed, idle, and malnourished legions, charities, missions, and churches began programs to feed them.

Resembling "a gray, black human snake," bread lines often formed as early as 4 a.m. on cold wintry days when men lined up six across to wait as long as two to three hours before they could sit down inside a soup kitchen and partake of the meager fare offered. (In January 1931, 82 bread lines in New York City served 85,000 "meals" daily!) Men who experienced the waiting in line recall the personal shame of asking for a handout, unable to care for oneself or to provide for others. Most men found it difficult to look into the eyes of other men in line, who, if asked, had similar stories to tell.

What was it like to be in a 1933 soup kitchen (the term is used synonymously with bread line, although there is a slight difference)? Piecing together recollections, it seemed to resemble an experience at summer camp, with obvious distinctions. First, the men might be "asked" to listen to a sermon for 10-20 minutes before being served any food. Once the speech was over, the men got back in a shorter line and, cafeteria style, were served a cup or bowl of soup or stew. They then sat down at community tables where hunks of stale bread awaited them (but never soda crackers, writes historian William Manchester) on large plates. Sometimes coffee was served. Most men described the soup as tasteless, thin, watery, lukewarm, and rarely with any vegetables. Some recall never being offered a second bowl or having bread to accompany the soup. Others, though a smaller number, remember second helpings, bread, cheese sandwiches, and oatmeal. After several minutes, some authority figure from the mission or church came up to the men who had been eating and asked them to leave, to make room for the others still outside. At this point the departing men went over to another bread line to begin their wait for another meal. This process would be repeated until the third day when familiar "chronic deadbeats" were evicted from the long lines.

Humiliating as it was to wait and get into a soup kitchen in 1931, it was nearly a universal experience for urban people of all classes, or at least it was a metaphor for what most Americans were caught up in during the "hard times" of the early 1930s Now you will re-create this experience with your classmates. Play your role to the hilt and, as you do, feel some empathy for an earlier generation's struggle to survive, cope, and hang on to some dignity in the winter of 1933, amidst personal calamity no doubt unique in our history.

[Vulture45-70]

Give me One to 5 acres, 1 Kobuta tractor with implements, a good well or stream then I'll tell the rest of the world adios

[bw]

Give me One to 5 acres, 1 Kobuta tractor with implements, a good well or stream then I'll tell the rest of the world adios

Until your tractor needs maintenance, and then you need the legal tender to get it fixed. Meanwhile, diesel costs money too.

[PCViking]

I had a vision of this back in the 70's. This vision drove me to go to engineering school... I saw robots in the fields and orchards... But, ever since I have not been able to get work in developing the item that is why I became an engineer.

This is the future! So where are the companies doing the development?

[rickd94]

His robot can only see down, and plants where it has not found a planting within a set range...

After a few weeks this device is now going to roll over them before seeing the new plants...

This using insect as an approach on planting appears to dispense with the need to re-visit that plant again and again

Visions of a fully populated field with no way to get back into it to water or harvest...

This is why farmers plant, spray, water, and harvest using the same machine (or accept the losses the different machines cause).
This causes row crops as best use of the available terrain, given the need to re-visit the plants.

rick in North Georgia

[jed turtle]

long ago i envisioned robotic attendees/tractors riding on rails (solar powered of course) to avoid compaction, the rails suspended off the ground by posts every so many feet. the plowing that has been going on since forever needs to end and be replaced with mulching, just to preserve the soil but also to minimize moisture loss and invasion by weeds, not to mention replacing artificial fertilizers with "organic" materials returned to the soil as mulch. since i don't have much acreage, and only need just enough to provide what we use, i'll just continue to do it all by hand without machines, other than the pump we use to sprinkle water periodically during dry periods. the thing is, we will all be unemployed by the advancing horde of robots and computers, so we might as well retreat to the little few acres we can afford now to raise our own sustenance and forget competing with machines.