Farm Industry News recently featured five robot farm helpers. It’s amazing to be to see how technology can change an industry that is literally so deeply rooted! I was also pleased to see sat least one Minnesota innovator (RowBot) online their list:

1. RowBot

Engineer and environmental scientist Kent Cavender-Bares and his brothers, Charlie and John Bares, have developed a robot that fertilizes crops once they are up. The robot, aptly named RowBot, travels between rows in groups to cover the ground. GPS and obstacle-prevention software keep the robot from trampling the crop.

“They key innovation with our machines is that they can operate between rows of corn, so the height of the crop no longer is a constraint,” says Kent Cavender-Bares. “That will enable us to deliver nitrogen and other services in corn throughout the season as required.”

2. Kinze autonomous tractor

Videos of Kinze’s autonomous tractor prototype went viral in July 2011, as viewers got their first glimpse of a driverless tractor and grain cart pulling up to a combine and hauling away grain. One year later that system got its legs, as Kinze leased it to Illinois farmers who used it on their own ground.

3. BoniRob crop scout

Amazone has designed a crop scout robot called the BoniRob that travels in flocks to check the health and status of the crop. An omnidirectional mobility system enables these lightweight robots to travel in all directions between the plants as they measure plant characteristics.

In conjunction with research partners Robert Bosch GmbH, Osnabrück University and Wageningen University, Amazone now is using the same interface to make a “universal” field robot that can be used for other applications. The robot is being designed to accept different modules, or “apps,” each of which is programmed to perform a different function in the same way as a tractor can pull different mounted implements. Such jobs could include weeding, spraying, fertilizing or delivering you a sandwich.

4. Spirit tractor

The autonomous tractor named Spirit had its formal debut in 2012 at the Big Iron Show in Fargo, N.D. Since then, the Autonomous Tractor Corp. has changed its focus from assembling tractors to working with agricultural companies to incorporating ATC guidance and navigation systems into self-propelled autonomous implements.

“Through the technique of incorporating autonomy into implements, capital outlay and maintenance time and cost can generally be reduced,” says Spirit developer Terry Anderson, president of ATC. “Pulling an implement is a very inefficient way of using power. Instead of the complexity of coupling and uncoupling implements and tractors, it is more efficient to autonomize an implement and have the implement incorporate the guidance and navigation systems.”

The ATC Implement Tractor has a fail-safe navigation system, Anderson says. Two transducers mounted on the tractor bounce signals from three or four mobile transponders placed around the field to determine position. Transponders use radio signals to keep the tractor on track.

5. Fendt GuideConnect

Several years ago at the Agritechnia show in Germany, Fendt showed a robotic system called “Guide Connect.” It consists of a manned lead vehicle with an unmanned follower, effectively creating a much larger tractor that can cover more ground for the same amount of labor. It is classified as a “master-slave” system, where the master is the tractor driver and the slave is the other tractor, controlled from the terminal in the first tractor. As of now, the follower vehicle has no obstacle detection, the hinge point of the robot’s market release.