Tech Agrobots: robotic rice planters and weeders

Once rice seeds have been planted by a drone, a succession of robotic technologies still to be developed would deal with weeding and reaping. "This initiative is in line with our course of action to support (farming)," said a farm ministry representative. "We welcome the entry from different industries with wide perspectives." A trial run on April 15 saw a drone take off with a quiet whir, its movements controlled with joystick like one used for video games. The craft flew over a 1000-square-meter rice paddy, scattering seeds treated beforehand with powdered iron to ensure a smooth drop from the air. The seeding process took just 10 minutes.

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Working with Nobeoka city, which is seeking ways to claw back growing tracts of abandoned farmland due to the aging of farmers, Tmsuk is robotizing agricultural procedures in three paddies. The process of creating dedicated beds for seedlings is replaced by a drone's scattering of seeds directly on rice paddies. Conditions in each of the fields are monitored remotely, so farmers do not need to patrol them periodically. [...] In September, Tmsuk dispatched 12 employees with sickles to one of the test sites to harvest the crop by hand. Nearly 400 kilograms were harvested in the 1,000-square-meter plot. Robotics reduced the time spent in labor to 29 hours compared with 529 hours when cultivation was done by hand, and the output came to nearly 80 percent of 500 kg that is expected to be harvested by the conventional method.

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The L robot harvests bell peppers. The robot's artificial intelligence was trained to recognize fruit ripe for harvesting by showing about 30,000 images of ripe bell peppers. The robot glides between the rows of plants on wires near the ceiling of the vinyl house. When its two cameras detect a ripe pepper, a robot arm extends to cut the fruit and place it in a cart. It takes the robot about a minute to harvest one bell pepper, much slower than a human worker, but its strength lies in its ability to work continuously without breaks.

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