Meet “Mantis” and “Shrimp”, agricultural robots being tested to do these tasks and more in a bid to cut costs and improve productivity in Australia’s economically vital farm sector, which exported A$39.6 billion ($38.8 billion) of produce in 2012.
Australia is one of the leaders in the field and, with a minimum wage of A$15.96 per hour and a limited workforce, has a big incentive to use robots and other technology such as unmanned aircraft to improve efficiency. It hopes to tap fast-growing Asian neighbours, where the swelling ranks of the middle class increasingly want more varied and better quality food from blueberries to beef.
“The adoption of new technology is going to be crucial for Australia to maintain its competitiveness in terms of the global agricultural sector,” said Luke Matthews, commodities strategist at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
“If we don’t adopt new technology, we can give up on these high-flying ambitions of being the food bowl of Asia.”
Agriculture now accounts for 2 per cent of Australia’s gross domestic product, but the government forecasts it could reach 5 per cent by 2050. Its growth is particularly important now the once-booming mining sector is slowing.
Colour receptors
A robot effortlessly plucking fruit is some way off, though a range of simpler tasks are within reach to add to existing technology such as automatic steering of harvesters.
Salah Sukkarieh, Professor of Robotics and Intelligent Systems at the University of Sydney and developer of Mantis and Shrimp, says the next phase aims for robots to do increasingly complex jobs such as watering and ultimately harvesting.
“We have fitted them with a lot of sensors, vision, laser, radar and conductivity sensors - including GPS and thermal sensors,” said Sukkarieh, speaking at his laboratory housing a collection of both ground robots and unmanned air vehicles.
The technology could have the biggest application in horticulture, Australia’s third-largest agricultural sector with exports of $1.71 billion in the last marketing year, since a fixed farm layout lends itself better to using robots.
Robots and an unmanned air vehicle that are being developed at the University of Sydney had passed field tests at an almond farm in Mildura, Victoria State, said Sukkarieh.
Source: www.nation.com.pk