Small, Mobile, and Autonomous Agricultural Robots

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">The automation of labor-intensive picking and planting operations is having an immediate impact in the agricultural indutry. In its simplest form, robotic automation can reduce the labor and soil disturbance while enabling organic soil cover and increasing species diversification through precision approaches to planting, weeding, and spraying. With this, pesticides and fertilizers can be applied in a more targeted way, and with machinery visiting fields more frequently, earlier and more targeted intervention can occur before pests become established.</div><div class="htmlview paragraph"><b>Small, Mobile, and Autonomous Agricultural Robots</b> identifies issues that need to be resolved fo for this technology to thrive, including improving methods of acquiring and labeling training data to facilitate more accurate models for specific applications. It also discusses concepts such as general-purpose mechanical platforms for use as carriers of agricultural automation systems with high stability, positional accuracy, and variable track, as well as the economics of moving capital intensive automation systems toward a service-provision business model.</div><div class="htmlview paragraph"><a href="https://www.sae.org/publications/edge-research-reports" target="_blank">Click here to access the full SAE EDGE</a><sup>TM</sup><a href="https://www.sae.org/publications/edge-research-reports" target="_blank"> Research Report portfolio.</a></div></div>