The rise of the robot farmer • Hacker News Board

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#121

Post by ph0rque » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 10:59 PM UTC

otakucode wrote: post #44

I eagerly await the introduction of fully automated farming. Not, however, on farms. In my own garage. I see no reason I should simply let a "farmer" purchase the automation gear and then collect profit after wasting tons of energy in transportation. There's dirt, water, and sun at my house. There's no reason a robotic farming situation couldn't be shrunk down and made into something private individuals or small fami…

If you replace "in my own garage" to "in my own backyard", then that's the problem I'm working on with my side project: https://automicrofarm.com/

One of the sibling comments has it exactly right: even if you get robots that can do all your gardening tomorrow, they will only marginally reduce the labor. Design in gardening matters, a lot. I wrote more about that recently: https://blog.automicrofarm.com/vertical-farming-and-automati...

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#122

Post by nkoren » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 11:13 PM UTC

noonespecial wrote: post #50

thruflo22 wrote: post #34

I’m co-founder of the “space bots with lasers” company. Happy to answer any questions.

Cool. How does the laser kill the weed without risking starting a fire that might damage the crops?

Not the OP, but I'd just point out that all you should need to do is get the stem above the boiling point of water, which is well below the combustion point.

What wavelength to use for that could be an interesting discussion. Makes me wonder whether you could use masers (microwave lasers) rather than optical lasers for a more efficient "heating the weed from the inside" effect.

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#123

Post by rripken » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 11:21 PM UTC

uxhack wrote: post #3

In Spain and in Portugal grape harvesting machines are common. They are also used for harvesting olives. The vines have to be planted in hedges. The machines straddle the hedges and gently shake the tree with rubber flippers. The vines have to be ripped out when they become to brittle.

We have mechanical harvesters in California but I haven't seen any that are gentle or use rubber flippers. Mechanical harvesters typically shake the trees/trunks a small amount but quite quickly. For grapes the shaking might move the top of the vine a foot or so at several hertz. The shaking is strong enough that most grapes are plucked off the stem merely because of the weight of the berry and the whip-like motion of the shaking. The newer style bow rod machines use multiple UHMW rods bent into a question mark like shape. A large number of materials were tried but UHMW is the strongest material that could be found for the application. If adamantium or vibranium could be sourced I'm sure it would be used.

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#124

Post by rripken » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 11:25 PM UTC

zackmorris wrote: post #35

Now for a bit of hubris: anyone else reading this feel that building a robot that could do pest/weed control and harvesting is almost a triviality compared to say, fixing enterprise software to maximize customer purchases and ad revenue? What are we all doing? Seriously, why can't each of us take a year of our lives and automate all the most awful jobs in the world? Asking for a friend :-P

I do enterprise software, I have a small farm AND I just completed a masters in robotics. Probably wasn't intentional on your part but I feel like you just left a Baby Ruth in my pool.

Farming isn't horrible. Programming Enterprise Software isn't that hard. Safely doing robots in the real-world is.

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#125

Post by knieveltech » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 11:26 PM UTC

dexterdog wrote: post #45

knieveltech wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory. In practice, this has lead to collapse of rural economies, rampant poverty, and epidemic drug usage amongst rural populations. As to driving food costs down, that's trivially disprovable. Loaf of bread in 1950: 12 cents. Adjusted for inflation that's $1.26 currently. A cheap loaf of white bread costs substantially more than $1.26. Edit: of course this gets downvoted, because econ gibberish is certainly mor…

First, my local stop n shop sells a loaf of white bread for $1.29 and that's not even a sale price. Second the average income has gone up by more than inflation as well so you would expect the cost of staples to go up accordingly.

Average income hasn't even kept pace with inflation since the 70's, go take a look at a graph of income inequality over time if you're curious where all those productivity gains went, you prove my point regarding no measurable drop in food prices (incidentally a loaf of bread is closer to $2.00 here), and would anyone care to take a crack at the larger criticism, namely total economic collapse of vast swaths of rural America or is "well, actually" over the price of a fucking loaf of bread the best HN can do?

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#126

Post by jpatokal » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 11:43 PM UTC

deialtrous wrote: post #115

otakucode wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a huge amount of work, but it is a significant time investment. I'm thinking more of a nearly-sealed box that is entirely automated, a family could purchase for a couple thousand dollars, and then it produces food for a few years. It's not so much robots in the sense of things which drive around the landscape that will improve that sort of things, but the work in the 'vertical farming' market. Isolated syste…

>but it is a significant time investment No, it really isn't. Place organic matter on the ground in fall or early spring. When the last frost has passed, plant seeds through it onto the ground. To do grow enough for a family of four is not even one day of work for one person. During the summer and fall, pick food and eat it. That's it. A robot isn't going to save enough time to be worth it. Using your palm-top to tel…

> To do grow enough for a family of four is not even one day of work for one person.

Citation needed. What crop would this be?

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#127

Post by rytill » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 11:53 PM UTC

thruflo22 wrote: post #34

I’m co-founder of the “space bots with lasers” company. Happy to answer any questions.

What kind of remote operation/visualization interfaces do you have for deployed systems? Does your company receive the alerts/visuals/notifications or do the farmers that buy from you receive these?

Do you want farmers to eventually be able to operate the fleets you sell them, or would you prefer to sell the entire operation to farmers and manage the fleets yourself?

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#128

Post by nitwit005 » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 12:05 AM UTC

I'm slightly surprised the use of the laser is killing weeds instead of insects. There have been some prior efforts at killing mosquitos with lasers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#129

Post by thatcat » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 12:14 AM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #92

PeterisP wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems a bit confusing - in the context of agriculture, when I hear "damage to the soil", then that implies (to me) that we're talking about the difference between the long-term soil erosion caused by plowing/tilling/cultivation versus growing different cultures for which the process requires less of such invasive activities and so doesn't erode the soil as much. The effect of large tires vs small tires vs tracks…

While I agree overall, soil compaction is something that large farms are starting to watch because it makes a measurable difference.

This is especially true for clay type soils that don't rebound as quickly or fully when compacted. When compacted beyond a certain pressure, the roots can't break through any longer. Small robots won't cause this though, it requires pretty high pressure. Consider an even smaller robot like 1-in wheel base, would that cause compaction?

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#130

Post by whatusername » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 12:16 AM UTC

knieveltech wrote: post #24

clarkmoody wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The immense productivity gains in agriculture have driven down food costs, which improves the standard of living of everyone. It also frees up those who would have worked farm jobs to do higher-valued labor in the economy.

In theory. In practice, this has lead to collapse of rural economies, rampant poverty, and epidemic drug usage amongst rural populations. As to driving food costs down, that's trivially disprovable. Loaf of bread in 1950: 12 cents. Adjusted for inflation that's $1.26 currently. A cheap loaf of white bread costs substantially more than $1.26. Edit: of course this gets downvoted, because econ gibberish is certainly mor…

Really?

The cheap loaves of bread in australia are $1 (that's in dollarydoos - so it works out to 0.71c in the US.) There's no state sales tax beyond that -- and the minimum wage is 18.93 dollarydoos (13.38).