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
 |
Multi-Robot Farming On Highly Sloped Land
“Multi-Robot Farming on Marginal, Highly Sloped Lands” is a three-year, $1,178,191 grant project from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Robotics Initiative 2.0: Ubiquitous Collaborative Robots, headed by Dan Flippo, assistant professor in the biological and agricultural engineering department.
(Robotic farming on highly sloped land)
This project will explore use of multiple small robots to farm highly sloped land. The robots, the size of a common wheelchair, will work in groups to accomplish fieldwork by unconventional means. Strap-on hardware modules will be designed to allow the small vehicles to plant, manage and harvest wheat on hills with slopes as great as 55 percent, or 30 degrees.Joining Dan Flippo in the endeavor at Kansas State University are Stephen Welch, professor, and Antonio Asebedo, assistant professor, both in agronomy; Arnaud Temme, associate professor of geography; and Sanjoy Das, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering.
“The outcome will be a total agriculture farming system melding unmanned aerial flyovers of the field and robotic planting-management-harvest systems to provide the extra yield needed to meet the 2050 dilemma,” Flippo said. “The system will be scalable, configurable and foreshadow the future of agricultural automation.”
I hope I can be forgiven for pointing out that the most highly sloped land you can find is on a cylindrical O'Neill colony space station, as in this excerpt from Larry Niven's 1966 story At the Bottom of a Hole:
Five miles above the sunlight tube, the sky was a patchwork of small squares, split by a central wedding ring of lake and by tributary rivers, a sky alive with the tiny red glints of self-guided tractor.
(Cylindrical space colony)
You might also like this story Once A Jolly Swagbot Camped By A Billabong.
Via High Plains Journal. (heh)
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 1/8/2018)
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
Warfare Goes Underground In Ukraine
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
3D Printed Organs From Space
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
Robot Bees 3D Printed By Festo
'At first I was struck by the large size of these bees..'
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!'
Don't Want To Wear A TIght Shiny Bodysuit?
'He looked a good bit like an elderly, fat beetle.'
Light Society: Simulates Earth-Scale Society With A Billion AI Agents
'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'
Satyress Centaur Robot Horror Reminds Everyone Of Something
'Fess was very dutiful'
When Colds Threaten You Can't Do This - Or Can You?
'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
Beautiful Visualization of Dawn Spacecraft
'Then he became aware of a gentle pressure pushing him away from the ship.'
Biological War: A Scenario
'And now they wre busily transforming all their companions, and so on, and so on...'
Pole-Dancing Stripperbot Robot
'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by electricity and never run down...'
Collective Superintelligence Is At Hand!
'Maybe the individual intelligence of each Cubic pools into a group intelligence...'
Instant Journalists: Ordinary People With Cell Phones
'We'll show them whose planet this is!'
Health Kiosk Has No Human Doctor
'The electronic body analyzer had been developed...'
