Abstract

Developments in robotic engineering and computer based technologies offer huge opportunities for agriculture. Robots have the potential to undertake a wide variety of operations on the farm including some of the mundane tasks such as manual harvesting. This paper explores the way in which the good robotics engineer is capable of thinking 'outside the box' and how he has to have a good grasp of the economics of the problem he is seeking to solve. The various components available to the engineer are considered including sensing systems, power units and control systems as well as the mechanical machine that does the work. Case studies include an asparagus harvester, robotic weeding, fruit harvesting and movement sensors for use with dairy cows.