Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Prospero, Robotic Farmer
Prospero is a robotic farmer prototype presented by vanmunch in response to a robot challenge at Schmart Board.
As you can see in the picture below, Prospero is a hexapod robot; the intent is to take agricultural machinery (and agbots) in a different direction. Rather than use huge machines and crops measured by thousands of acres, why not try using smart robots to do farming on a plant-by-plant basis?
(Prospero, Robotic Farmer)
Prospero is an autonomous hexapod that can instantly change directions without turning its body, avoid objects, detect seeds (that it or another robot has planted), plant seeds at a specified spacing, mark/apply a pre-emergent herbicide &/or fertilizer and let other Prospero robots in the area know if it needs help planting seeds in its area or if the area has been planted. It's meant to be deployed as part of a larger group/ swarm and its behavior uses swarm and game theory......what if we were able to make farming decisions on a foot by foot or plant by plant basis? This would dramatically increase the productivity of the land, but you would also dramatically increase the number of people and the cost of business. This is a problem if you used people, but what about a swarm of simple, inexpensive robots?
(Prospero, Robotic Farmer video)
Philip K. Dick has a fairly early reference for the idea of farm robots in his 1955 story War Veteran; he mentions a robot gardener.
Update Feb-28-2015: I found an earlier and more complete reference; see the article for robot farmer from The Turning Wheel by Philip K. Dick (19540. End update.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 3/18/2011)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Agriculture ")
Fully Electric, Fully Automated Vegetable‑growing Agribots
'...then back to their work, though little enough it was on these automatic cultivators.' - John Campbell, 1931.
MK-V Smart Tractor - Fully Electric, Farmer Optional
'A small electric tractor was working at the far side, and a slight hum could be heard from where he sat.' - Warner Van Lorne, 1936
Vertical Farm In Singapore's Output Is 1.5 Tons Per Day
'A towering eighty-story structure like the office "In-and-Out" baskets stacked up to the sky.' - Pohl and Kornbluth, 1952.
Mashambas Skyscraper Farm Design Wins
'...a towering eighty-story structure like the office In-and Out baskets stacked up to the sky.' - Poh and Kornbluth, 1952.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
You Will Eat The Cookies Made From Plastic...
'Our planes are going to start bringing in bales of discarded plastics...'
It's A Giant Robot! You Reporters Have Been Warned!
'... completely forgetting the ship at sight of the awesome figure and great head of the giant Gaut...'
Birds Learn To Sing Pictures ala Frank Herbert's Distrans
'We will fight in the time of fighting.'
ElectionSim: China's 'Ender's Game' Battle Sim, Or Lem's 'Kingdom In A Box'?
'So, Ender, we will now begin your education.'
Tactile Skin Supplier Map
'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'
Flock Stymied By 'Adversarial Fashion'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'
Orb Nomad Zero-Emission Electric Aircraft
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.'
ICE Buys Shock Gloves Like Batman's
What else is the Caped Crusader using?
Factories In The Sky Will Surpass Those Of Earth
'The thirty-odd miles of The Factory’s circumference...'
Sleeper Drones Lie in Wait
'Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them.'
Warfare Goes Underground In Ukraine
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
Robot Bees 3D Printed By Festo
'At first I was struck by the large size of these bees..'
3D Printed Organs From Space
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
DIY Robot Scorpion Crushes It
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'
How To Settle An Argument Between Two Robots
'Henry... assumed the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits.'
The Wind Phone Calls Those Who Have Passed On
'Only I heard that!'
