Farmbot 🌱🤖
- Kevin Alcalde (Unlicensed)
Introduction to Farmbot - History and Introduction of an agricultural robot
Farmbot is an open source cnc machine that allows you to growth your owns vegetables using software and documentation including farming data repository.
The FarmBot project was started in 2011 by American Rory Aronson whilst studying mechanical engineering at California Polytechnic State University. Aronson attended an elective course in organic agriculture where he learned about a tractor that used machine vision to detect and cover weeds which removed the need for herbicides or manual labour, the tractor cost over US$1 million.
The project is a response to the 60% increase food production needed due to the growth in world population to between 7 - 9 billion by 2050 and the potential of precision agriculture to reduce the environmental impacts of farming by reducing water use, energy, transportation, petrochemicals and time required to grow crops.
What are the benefits of Farmbots?
There are a lots of benefits, let us see the most significant of these:
First of all, we can reduce our use of water in farming, it’s a very special fact, in order to contribute to a sustainable development. Particularly here in Mendoza, Argentina we care and we are always looking for alternatives to minimize the use of this resource.
Moreover the use of insecticides and agrochemicals is totally replaced by the precision of this machine. We can see and control a lot of parameters that allow you to increase your organic production.
Last but not least, these farming robots can perform almost all processes prior to harvesting including sowing, mechanical weed control and watering. The FarmBot is able to gather data to take into account factors such as age of the plant and local weather conditions from both local sensors and external data from the internet.
How Does a Farmbot Work?
It requires electricity, an internet connection and water supply which can be provided using off grid solutions including a water barrel to collect rain and a solar panel and battery to provide electricity.
The Farmbot performs different tasks through automatically attaching different tools to a universal tool mount, including a seed injector, a watering nozzle and a tool to bury weeds. The machine is able to weed the planted area using the weed suppressor using a camera to identify weeds by comparing all plants in the area to the locations of the planted seeds.
Farmbot is controlled through a web based interface allowing remote access from any location on most internet enabled devices. It uses an online crop database called OpenFarm to create an optimal planting plan based on the size of the adult crop.The precision of the machine makes it suitable for lab conditions.
What are the Challenges Ahead for Farmbots?
Farmbots are the future of farming. From weed-whackers to tractors, robots are being used in every aspect of food production. With the rising cost of labor and a shortage of skilled workers, farmers are looking to automation as a way to save money, reduce their carbon footprint and improve their yield.
While the benefits are clear, farmbots still have some challenges to overcome before they become omnipresents on farms around the world. Here are three main challenges that may stand in their way:
Farmbots need to be more affordable
Farmbots need more reliable sensors
Farmbots need better software
Conclusion to The Future of Farming
The world population is expected to hit 9 billion by 2050, which means that we simply cannot continue with the same methods we used in the past. The planet simply won’t stand for it anymore. We need to find ways to produce more food without using more resources or harming our environment any further than it already has been harmed. That’s where farmbots come in.
Bibliography: FarmBot