161–170 of 326 posts
Given the computer vision component is the hard part, why stick with traditional pesticides? Is there any limitation stopping lasers from being viable?
This is an improvement within the current paradigm of "big ag", but IMHO tech is opening the possibility of a completely different way of doing things. For example, this comment which is below the linked video imagines a robot-maintained food forest, I think it's on point because I, too, believe that the future is swarms of small robots rather than a few big tractors: > Imagine, a few years down the line, applying th…
* John Deere, has "See and spray".
* Robovator
* Carbon Robotics Laser Weeder
* Ecorobotics solar powered autonomous weeder.
Your choice of chemical, laser, or mechanical weed killing. The first two above are production products.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not really. Plenty of people have handheld tasers powered by 9v batteries and plenty of farm equipment can (and does) mangle people not being careful around very dangerous machines. This is just a misunderstanding of the risks involved in various things.
I'm well aware that it's far from the only thing that'll kill me on a farm. That said, comparing a 50Kv shock to a handheld taser (which typically run at 300-500v) makes me think I might not be the one who misunderstands the risks.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't intuitive to me. If one big tractor has a failure, the whole operation shuts down. If 1/1000 drones breaks, swap in a spare and move it to some kind (potentially automate-able) repair area. If the ideal number of drones is 1000 operationally, you just need to figure out how much of a margin of extra reserves you need to keep things operating. But even with a .1% lower capacity, you'd probably not notice an…
I think the worry is that with 1,000 drones, if you have 10 breaking daily, that's probably a full-time job for someone to be repairing them, especially if they have to go out retrieving them. One big tractor isn't a full-time job's worth of maintenance.
When I see stuff like this sometimes I get depressed that I'm building apps that just move little bits of information around the web and don't have any real demonstrable value to the world. How hard is the jump into the realm of computer vision/AI/robotics for someone with strong skills and experience building web applications? Is the coding much different? Is a company like this employing math/theroy-heavy people to…
It's a common misconception that you need a ML or robotics PhD to work in the field. There are plenty of frontend & backend web engineering, data engineering, and infrastructure/devops roles available at robotics companies - you don't need to be a domain expert. For example, at Foxglove[0] we are building open source web-based visualization and data management for robotics (shameless plug: currently hiring). [0] http…
https://www.fossjobs.net/ https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources
This is an improvement within the current paradigm of "big ag", but IMHO tech is opening the possibility of a completely different way of doing things. For example, this comment which is below the linked video imagines a robot-maintained food forest, I think it's on point because I, too, believe that the future is swarms of small robots rather than a few big tractors: > Imagine, a few years down the line, applying th…
> the future is swarms of small robots A key problem with small autonomous robots is their energy supply and mass. Batteries have low energy density. Actuators have bad power to weight ratios too. Living things are enormously more efficient. So much so that the intuition apparently offered by watching animals usually does not apply. This is extremely true for swarm robotics, inspired by ants, termites, etc. Swarm cri…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not really. Plenty of people have handheld tasers powered by 9v batteries and plenty of farm equipment can (and does) mangle people not being careful around very dangerous machines. This is just a misunderstanding of the risks involved in various things.
I'm well aware that it's far from the only thing that'll kill me on a farm. That said, comparing a 50Kv shock to a handheld taser (which typically run at 300-500v) makes me think I might not be the one who misunderstands the risks.
You're off by three orders of magnitude. You need about 32 million volts per meter to overcome the resistance of the air. For a gap of a centimeter, it's about a few hundred kilovolts.
And I grew up farming, I'm quite familiar with the dangers.
For example harvesting equipment... the big ones are sort of up to a 30 food wide chainsaw with conveyors and other grabby bits to suck you in. People need to be many meters away from those things while they're running for any sense of safety. A hot spark has nothing on many other dangers and if designed with any sense would only result in severe local burns. Plenty of farm equipment will effortlessly rip a limb off if it doesn't tear your entire body into bite sized chunks.
You know the machines that do that and you don't go near them. When you're the operator you must know where everyone is at all times and know what they mean to do... and be able to communicate with them with a series of gestures, eye contact, short yells, etc. If you don't it's trivially easy to kill your helpers.
This is an improvement within the current paradigm of "big ag", but IMHO tech is opening the possibility of a completely different way of doing things. For example, this comment which is below the linked video imagines a robot-maintained food forest, I think it's on point because I, too, believe that the future is swarms of small robots rather than a few big tractors: > Imagine, a few years down the line, applying th…
> the future is swarms of small robots A key problem with small autonomous robots is their energy supply and mass. Batteries have low energy density. Actuators have bad power to weight ratios too. Living things are enormously more efficient. So much so that the intuition apparently offered by watching animals usually does not apply. This is extremely true for swarm robotics, inspired by ants, termites, etc. Swarm cri…
I work in this industry (contributing architect of https://nelsonirrigation.com/products/twig-wireless-controls...).
We dream of lots of fun things. And even try some of them. But not a few days go by that we don’t once again mutter “power is king” To each other. Everything we do revolves around the constraint of power budgets.