Feb 16, 2021
$ 20.3 billion spent on farms robots by 2025. Why?
Farmers see the value of agritech robots and it’s a hot start-up space…
According to an article by marketsandmarkets, the global market for robotic farming should grow from about $ 4.6 billion US (£3.28 billion) in 2020 to $ 20.3billion US (£14.5 billion) by 2025, a CAGR of 34.5%. PRNewswire reported on the growth of the robotics market from 2020 to 2025, growing to $177 billion. An earlier version of this article said that the agricultural robotics market would be that size. Of course, the agricultural robotics market is only a small part of that. Sorry for this mistake. I spotted this myself, fortunately.
For a while now, tractors have been GPS-guided and driverless.
Actually, driverless tractors have been around since the 1940s. Now, they have many safety features and can be piloted remotely or by positioning signals from GPS satellites. That takes care of ploughing/tillage but what about other tasks in the field?
Autonomous combine harvesters and grain carts have also existed for a few years. The combine in this video has a lot of kill-switches and obstacle-detecting lasers for safety.
Planting
Okay, this farm is indoors and looks very lab-like, but it’s very efficient on space and the robots manage everything and handle the seedlings with care. The bots sort out feeding, light, space, pests. 30 acres to 1 acre! What will farmers do with their extra space?
Quadcopters in the fields
Quadcopters, aka “drones”, are used for inspecting and spraying crops, soil sampling, mapping. This means irrigation patterns and crop health and damage are noted. Drones have various cameras: visual, thermal, LIDAR, multispectral, NVDI (basically Are-the-crops-green-vision).
Quadcopters are used for weeding and spraying in fields. This tech is also used in building inspection, outside agriculture. Sometimes it’s much easier to fly a bot to hard-to-reach places that might be dangerous for people to visit.
In fact, will we need to use pesticides in the future? See this article for what’s happening on that front.
Ultimately, drone use increase efficiency and yield, thus earnings.
All your fruits are belong to us
Robots are able to pick fruit, from strawberries (with 24 arms!), cherries and plumbs to tomatoes to oranges. Some have precision-controlled manipulators and cameras, checking for the ripe fruits.
Some shake trees so their fruit will fall, then collect the fruit in large bags.
Robotic animal husbandry
Some robots milk cows, feed them, collect data on their productivity and adjust their feed, even in sub-zero temperatures near freezing Winnipeg:
Other bots herd cattle or sheep in rugged conditions, like this one from SwagBot, outback Australia:
Security patrols
Robots like UGV, Unmanned Ground Vehicles, are used for security on farms, e.g. marijuana farms, checking locks and large, empty spaces, removing nuisance animals and keeping human intruders out. Here is a video by Sharp, showing their INTELLOS drone and all it can do, sorry it’s an advert.
Abilities that farm robots need
Robots need to see what they’re doing, so computer vision is important.
Satellites guide the tractors, combines and grain carts with high precision.
For crop sampling and picking fruit, bots need to be able to grip and drop or accurately place pieces of plants using their manipulators.
They need to get around the field or the poly-tunnel, so usually, move on wheels but some bots need to fly.
They are working in the field, so they have to be rugged: waterproof, dust-proof, heat-resistant (indeed, some are powered by the sun), cold-resistant, able to cope with mud (tracks, rotor-blades, high-grip wheels on long legs), safe for humans to use and be near, Wi-Fi-connected to transfer data, plus easy to control and not too expensive.
Agricultural robotics companies including start-ups:
So many companies doing great things with robotics in farming:
Small Robot Company, SKT Aeroshutter (Ghanaian ‘coptors), Skyx, DJI (of course, they dominate the flying drones market), Rabbit Tractors (swarms of small bots), Swarm Farm, Kubota (big robotics company), Soft Robotics, Blue River Technologies, Muddy Machines (does what it says in the name), ecoRobotix, Abundant Robotics, Asimo Multitech, Agrobot, American Robotics, Rowbot (not “Rowbots”), Hands Free Hectare, Sharp, Iron Ox, Naio Technologies.
