Hyperquake Blog

In all honesty, they may not really be called ‘GardenerBots,’ (GBs for short) but that’s what I’m going to call them for the purpose of this post.

GBs are such close relatives of our friend BirdBot, we felt we should share with all our readers the advancements that they are helping us make in the world of sustainable agriculture.

Farming is no easy task. Farming sustainably is even more complicated. In either case, it’s certainly true that without ever having participating in the act of farming first hand, many of us probably take for granted all the labor and resources that go into growing green peppers or Gala apples, and getting them from field to plate fresh and in good shape.

Well, a crew of students over at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology‘s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratories (CSAIL) obviously have learned that producing fruits and veggies isn’t easy and as such, have sought out to understand how robots could help lessen factors tied to labor and resources, ultimately helping to farm more efficiently and sustainably.

You can check out a whole story on the study that they are doing here. Essentially, they are determining ways for the computerized sensors connected to potted plants can tell robots when they need nutrients and water, (as well as how much) and when fruit is produced and ready to be harvested. Very crude robots designed for the study (yep that’s a Roomba they are built on!) have dexterous arms with an integrated camera that can help them see in order to water plants and pick fruit among other things. (By the way, Roomba’s are pretty funny and this is why. They are more of a toy than a vacuum…)

How this study could potentially affect the future, at least of greenhouse farming, is pretty cool to think about. There really is a level of precision that is evident in what these automatons can offer when it comes to reducing wasted resources and time across the whole agricultural process; from seed, to store, to your belly.

If you are curious and want to see more of these automatons, specifically in action, there is a video below. Probably the funniest thing about this is the what looks to be Dell laptop strapped vertically to their backs. Roomba + Dell = GardenerBot. Who new?