Structurized Ecological Cultivation with Autonomous Robots in Indoor Agriculture
In the world that is suffering for ever more obvious pollution consequences, organic farming represents a step towards reducing pollution with an environmentally friendly solution. Unfortunately, in order to reduce the use of pesticides and GMO cultures, organic agriculture becomes ever more labor-intensive, with a comparably smaller agricultural output. The obvious economical consequence of such a production system is a higher cost of organic food. The labor input in organic agriculture fits the description of dull and dangerous jobs, and therefore ideally fits the use of robots. By aiding farmers in their daily chores, a proposed heterogeneous robotic system has the potential to make the products of organic agriculture less expensive, and in turn more accessible to the wider population. Deploying robots on big farms is not a new concept. It is rather a fast-growing industry, that focuses on big machines applied for specific crops and use cases. Project Specularia goes beyond the current state of the art, in the sense that it proposes a system comprised of small robots with specific abilities that can execute certain tasks only when they are introduced to work together. Such a system surpasses current farming robots in its scalability and versatility, which makes them ideal for small family-run organic farms. The key issue in dealing with sensitive plants is to ensure the necessary compliance from the manipulator motion. This will ensure the robot can execute certain tasks, and at the same time make sure that the plant is not harmed. This requirement also fits within the Soft robotics paradigm, which focuses researchers to build better sensing machines, capable of dexterous human-like motion.