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.
Small, Mobile, and Autonomous Agricultural Robots 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.