The Swagbot with professor Salah Sukkarieh (right) and a grower. Prototypes have recently been tested succesfully.
Australian farm robots show potential to assist ageing workforce
A
AUSTRALIA BY RENÉ GROENEVELD
s a professor of Robotics and Intelli- gent Systems at the University of Sydney, Salah Sukkarieh and his team have been developing air and
ground robotic solutions for the agricultural industry since 2005. Their research at the Aus- tralian Centre for Field Robotics resulted in the founding of startup Agerris. This company’s SwagBot, and the more affordable Digital Farmhand, will soon be available in Australia and overseas. Prototypes of the SwagBot have recently been tested and proved to be useful for weeding, pasture monitoring, soil sampling and animal monitoring. Agerris has since then raised $ 6.5 million to build commercial smaller than tractor-sized robots.
Cooperation with a drone Farmers can use the robots for identifying and eradicating weeds, to monitor pastures, row
and tree crops, and for monitoring animal wel- fare and herd cattle. “SwagBot can traverse around very difficult environments such as un- dulating terrain, over logs, rocks and ditches,” says Mr Sukkarieh. “It can automatically detect weeds and spray them. SwagBot can also detect individual ani- mals with the hope of detecting any sickness in animals.” The robot has sensors like GPS, vision and laser that provide navigation and collision avoid- ance information. It works with onboard path planning and control algorithms that help go around obstacles and track animals. The SwagBot can also work together with a drone. It provides high level mapping info of the terrain and detects weeds in general, so that SwagBot can define more accurate plan- ning to those weeds and can avoid obstacles easier. It is battery powered and can get about six hours of activity before recharge. That can happen at solar points around the farm.
Digital Farmhand The other robot Agerris built is the Digital Farmhand, designed for row and tree crops and a cheaper option. It has on board sensing and machine learning algorithms that help build models of individual plants. “This way we can minimise the amount of chemicals used for spraying and weeding, as well as help farmers understand their crop growth characteristics.” Both robots can be a useful addition to the ageing Australian agricultural workforce. “With the robotics technologies we are building, we are able to assist farmers with the daily chores on the farm.” The robots can potentially excite the next generation of farmers as well. Mr Sukkarieh: “We now have a programme were the Digital Farmhand is taken to schools for a term and the kids learn how to code the robots in an agriculture setting.” A price is not published, since Agerris just started the commercialisation process of both SwagBot and Digital Farmhand. “However, they are meant to be low cost solutions.”
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