When we think of Farming, our mind immediately races to the images of farmers and their oxen dredging in the fields. Farming has always remained the dominion of human labour with either beasts of burden or expensive machines supplementing their efforts.

The concepts of accuracy, prediction or cutting edge technology are always one that have remained unassociated with agriculture. All of that has changed in the past few years- thanks to robotics!

While there are a few naysayers behind the entry of robotics into the area of agriculture, most are happy to embrace automation, especially when it helps boost income and reduce stress. But whether you love robots, fear them, or just can’t look away, they are upending farming as we know it. We would like to present to you some of those mean machines which have turned quite a few heads.

1) Wine Bot

Created by a french inventor named Christophe Millot, this self-propelled robot is used for pruning vines, removing young shoots, and monitoring soil and vine health. Millot named his bot Wall-Ye, an interesting tribute to the beloved animated film character. Wall-Ye incorporates a tight security system. It is designed in such a way that it can be commanded to operate at pre-designated vineyards and any intervention with an malicious intent will only result in the self-destruction of the hard drive.

2) Bee Bot

Harvard engineers have unveiled a teeny-tiny bee bot dubbed RoboBee. Allegedly to be the smallest flying robot ever made the goals of this cute little robot are broad and have far reaching impact on the planet. It finds potential applications in everything from autonomous pollination to post-disaster search and rescue. In the UK, researchers are working on an autonomous bee with a more structured goal. They want to map the honeybee brain so they can completely synthesize bee behavior — and keep the world’s food chain intact.

3) SwagBot

SwagBot, designed by the Australian Centre for Field Robotics, has been conceived with a unique purpose in mind. It is designed to monitor and interact with crops and plants, along with animals roaming about the farm. The omni-directional, all-wheel drive electric robot is built to withstand rugged terrain and can even take trailers along for the ride. The team recently let SwagBot loose on a cattle farm where it towed a trailer, interacted with horses, rolled across fallen logs and powered through streams.

4) Farmbot

Farmbot Genesis is an open source, autonomous farming system that is supposed to fit virtually anyone’s backyard, greenhouse or rooftop. Sensors make it possible to leverage real-time data about soil. Additionally a camera monitors plant health—when it detects weeds, it removes them autonomously. Offering a huge list of mods and add-ons—from rainwater collection to compost to resource management—there’s a lot of customization possible.

Last but not least, 

5) Case IH Concept Vehicle

We’ve reserved this behemoth for the last. Quite a burly monster, this technology is expected to turn the agricultural world on its head. The Case IH Concept, which dropped the cabin of a tractor to envision what the future of self-driving tractors might look like. This autonomous tractor is designed to be remotely monitored and programmed. It uses a combination of sensors to detect obstacles and warn farmers, asking them to plot the ideal course around it without tearing up the field. It packs features such telematics for remote management of farm machinery. 

At this juncture, it is also worth to mention the fact we at Kidobotikz are also doing our bit to the field of agriculture by making our own robot optimised for agriculture. Called Agribot, this robot is packs in quite a few features that will make it an asset for any farmer.

Happy Roboting ! !

Kidobotikz is a leading EdTech startup offering Robotics Courses for students. Moving from a Robotics training Institute which conducted Robotics classes to a “Learn Robotics Online”, Kidobotikz today has 4 levels of Kits which offer Robotics for Kids. If the question on your mind is “How to learn robotics”, then the answer is Kidobotikz.