Here at Engadget, it's a safe bet to say that we've never met a
robot we didn't like. Still, people who work as farmhands may not take too kindly to this concept for an agricultural droid from Vision Robotics. The idea is that a scout robot would use vision and mapping technology to determine what areas of an orchard need to be harvested, and then would deploy itself, or possibly a team of "harvester" robots to bring home a basket of delicious goodies. It's similar to a
tomato-picking bot we spotted nearly two years ago, but we're guessing that the mapping aspect makes this new one a bit different. From what we can tell, these bots are still in the lab, if not on the drawing board, but a recent application to the US Patent and Trademark Office shows some promise. If the scout robot gets approved or someone spots it roaming the Central Valley of California or the Yakima Valley of Washington, we'll let you know. Cyber house rules, indeed.
posted October 4th 2006 10:15AM
I for one welcome our agrarian based overlords.
I for one welcome our new orchard picking robot overlords.
"Cyber house rules, indeed."
Geeky AND corny (no pun indended).
I like.
Thems some dinky wheels. Are the target orchards all inside of greenhouses? I guess the robots know best though (they forced me to say that - er, no they didn't).
I can see the Luddites coming back :-p
Only if it understands the binary language of moisture 'vaporators.
...moisture vaporizors. You don't speak Bocce do you? ;)
OMG! I think the designer has been watching Tom Selleck's 'Runaway'... the design of this orchard picking robot is almost identical to the farming robot that goes mad in that movie
The real question is will these too come from Mexico?
If it has moved from the drawing board they had better send it back. I don't think that little front wheel will make it through the furrows, depending on the scale. This thing looks top heavy at any scale. Knowing Engadget this is probably a generic robot diagram.
Finally, a cure for illegal immigration! Yay!
Those arms better be long enough to reach the ground because this thing will spend alot of its time picking itself back up.
Kinda reminds me of the library bot from the last episode of Gits:SAC