Vision Robotics' agricultural scout robot, coming soon to a farm near you

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.

[Jeff Buechler @ Oct 4th 2006 10:24AM]

I for one welcome our agrarian based overlords.

[ricefarmer @ Oct 4th 2006 10:24AM]

I for one welcome our new orchard picking robot overlords.

[Rohit Kapur @ Oct 4th 2006 10:25AM]

"Cyber house rules, indeed."

Geeky AND corny (no pun indended).

I like.

[Jacob Kennedy @ Oct 4th 2006 10:32AM]

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).

[Nith @ Oct 4th 2006 10:37AM]

I can see the Luddites coming back :-p

[strider_mt2k @ Oct 4th 2006 10:49AM]

Only if it understands the binary language of moisture 'vaporators.

[red @ Oct 4th 2006 12:13PM]

...moisture vaporizors. You don't speak Bocce do you? ;)

[michael.leonard @ Oct 4th 2006 11:31AM]

The real question is will these too come from Mexico?

[codecorvid @ Oct 4th 2006 12:56PM]

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.

[Big Al @ Oct 4th 2006 1:47PM]

Finally, a cure for illegal immigration! Yay!

[Taz @ Oct 4th 2006 2:01PM]

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

[blackfeather @ Oct 4th 2006 2:25PM]

Those arms better be long enough to reach the ground because this thing will spend alot of its time picking itself back up.

[cephelotron @ Oct 4th 2006 5:27PM]

Kinda reminds me of the library bot from the last episode of Gits:SAC