I recently gave a talk about tractors and robots to the #Landwards Conference of #IagrE
There is a lot of investment and hype going into robotic field machines very often to do specialist tasks in high value crops. The “robots” can generally do one or two specialist jobs which is fine if you have hundreds of acres on which to recoup the investment . I think a better option is to convert our existing tractors to be switchable between a driverless mode and manual control. Tractors are extremely versatile machines capable of many tasks and drivers are similarly versatile and given that new robots come with a price tag in six figures and a secondhand tractor has a much lower book value we should be consolidating designs for conversion.
In parallel we need to develop safe working practices into the design of the sensors with which digital tractors must be equipped. In horticulture many processes such as weeding and harvesting still rely on skilled manual workers in close proximity to moving machinery. We need to protect workers from harm quite apart from any delays and holdups dealing with iincidents. So the tractor should be building a digital record of its operations which will include video using the sort of technology now common in dashcams. The data can then be used to train new teams.
#digitaltractor
