Gardening robot

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers are developing a robot that can someday replace your growing, caring and harvesting garden.

Professor Nikolaus Correll, who is working with his students on robotics, said confidently, "We are currently experimenting with robots with tomatoes, but in the future, we can experiment. with all kinds of vegetables'.

MIT's robot in a test - Photo: Discovery

Correll's team experimented with tomatoes because they had just built a small robot, based on the Roomba circular floor screeds with a diameter of more than 30 cm. Above the Roomba is a robot arm and a computer inside. This arm, which is equipped with a camera and hand grip, can be extended by 78 cm. In one experiment, the robot could irrigate a tomato, then move on to another tomato and pick up the fruit manually by pinching it after being identified by the webcam.

Garden robots are part of a project to teach MIT students about robotic technology. One can easily approach a tomato and pick fruit, but this is not simple for robots. Deciding what color means that the tomatoes are ripe, applying appropriate pressure to pick fruits without pain, and turning them in comfort are the skills that need to be taught to the robot.

Garden robots help students acquire basic knowledge about robots' software engineering and hardware, but agriculture also benefits from this. Scientists believe that there are many things robots do on farms and orchards, from weeding to harvest. This helps to increase the speed and efficiency of agricultural operations.

If you have a garden with small trees, please mobilize the gardening robot in a few years. These robot refining efforts are being promoted at MIT, and currently cost about $ 2,500.