Robotic Following Cart to Replace Light Duty Tractor Tasks?

[daugen]

Watermelons are hand picked.
Need something to follow you with bluetooth perimeter sensing. GPS included for location. You'd need obstacle sensitivity as well to not run into stuff.

I think the OP has the electronics thought through, but the real issue is who will buy this? OP is trying to determine need for this tool at a certain price point.
Lot of good ideas here, hope the OP understands we are trying to help, even with the "don't think it will work" feedback. Most of us would take a very hard look at any tool that costs 5 grand.

Since so much of the veggie/fruit picking in this country is done by piece work, pay by the bin or whatever container is used, not sure any of those markets offer opportunities to OP unless the migrant/seasonal worker supply doesn't exist. I saw a US map of concentration of undocumented workers last night, wonder if the states with the least number of undocumented workers offer an opportunity. Of course, there isn't much fruit to pick in Alaska...

I'm interested to know if the OP picks their farm's fruit themselves, or hires seasonal help. And if the cost of picking is a major portion of the wholesale cost of the product. I saw spreadsheets before, not sure of total picking cost.
Since I have a fruit orchard (in miniature) I understand the pruning and spraying components. Am guessing picking cost is a good chunk of the labor cost.

Now if we actually do deport all the undocumented workers, which I think would cripple certain industries, perhaps any labor savings device would then be seen as a crucial component, and justifiable.

 

[candersen10]

I just don't see it working in actual practice like you describe. Good theory but not likely to work.


TBS

TBS, any reason why not? The operator is doing the path planning by walking so can avoid particularly rough terrain. Odometry can get down to +/- a few inches of accuracy over a reasonably short distance (under 1000-2000 feet depending on terrain). The platform we have already functions quite well even in 2WD form on gravely surfaces and can easily carry 300-400 pounds or more although we are aiming for a slightly smaller payload in a commercial form.

Just trying to understand why not.

Thank you for the feedback though, much appreciated!

 

[candersen10]

I don't know. I was thinking a bit more and maybe it should be marketed to the picker, not the grower? Can it enable the picker to pick more in a given time? Since they're paid by how much they pick, they pick pretty darn fast. Will this device help them pick any faster?

Take that link with the pepper pickers, for example. The grower says he gets 25-35 thousand pounds of peppers per acre over three picks. Each pick lasts about 2 weeks. So lets go for 30,000# in three picks. That's 10,000# per pick. Three times a season. The pickers get paid by how many containers they fill, not by how fast they fill them. So if it takes them a week to pick 10,000# or it takes them two weeks to pick 10,000#, they still get the same amount of money at the end of the pick. There's no incentive to the farmer to have them pick faster, but there's incentive to the picker to pick faster, as they'll have more time to pick elsewhere, or free time.

Maybe there's more incentive to the smaller farmer that doesn't pay anyone else to harvest the crop, but harvests it himself? But that small is usually frugal. So, again, a tractor would be more useful. Any machine that isn't moving isn't making money. I don't see this machine moving all the time. A tractor is more useful for more tasks.

And again, I go back to the question of once the user sends it back to the drop point, how does it find its way back to the user that's moved while the machine is making its round trip? How does it know how much further down the row the picker has moved?

Mossroad, our thought is that when it returns to the picker, it returns to the furthest spot it had traveled to previously. Accordingly, if the picker had moved down a row quite a bit, he/she would have to return to the previous spot to guide the robot further down the line. I'm not sure if this would be an issue for people or not but that's the concept as of now and what we are working to code/implement.

 

[candersen10]

I think the OP has the electronics thought through, but the real issue is who will buy this? OP is trying to determine need for this tool at a certain price point.
Lot of good ideas here, hope the OP understands we are trying to help, even with the "don't think it will work" feedback. Most of us would take a very hard look at any tool that costs 5 grand.

Since so much of the veggie/fruit picking in this country is done by piece work, pay by the bin or whatever container is used, not sure any of those markets offer opportunities to OP unless the migrant/seasonal worker supply doesn't exist. I saw a US map of concentration of undocumented workers last night, wonder if the states with the least number of undocumented workers offer an opportunity. Of course, there isn't much fruit to pick in Alaska...

I'm interested to know if the OP picks their farm's fruit themselves, or hires seasonal help. And if the cost of picking is a major portion of the wholesale cost of the product. I saw spreadsheets before, not sure of total picking cost.
Since I have a fruit orchard (in miniature) I understand the pruning and spraying components. Am guessing picking cost is a good chunk of the labor cost.

Now if we actually do deport all the undocumented workers, which I think would cripple certain industries, perhaps any labor savings device would then be seen as a crucial component, and justifiable.

Daugen, your comments on who would buy this hit precisely on what I am trying to figure out. The electronics can be figured out. We know that with a pretty good degree of certainty.

On my family farm, we have 6 full timers who do many of our harvests. We occasionally hire local workers, who tend to be migrant laborers, also. We are very diversified so picking everything from sweet corn to tomatoes to lettuce on a fairly small scale, yet much of the time is spent lugging bins of produce from field to an F250 or wagon, and then back down to a collection point. On our operation, it would work (drone video will be forthcoming in the next few weeks), however, in fruit/vegetable production it appears as if practices vary enormously depending on crop/region/climate etc.

 

[Industrial Toys]

It's not often that someone comes up with something to sell and the world beats a path to your door. It's more often that someone as a hobby builds something and then the neighbor wants one, then the other and so forth, and a business is born. Bobcat started this way. I think the big Stieger (sp?) tractors started this way too.

Unfortunately, having conviction in ones idea isn't usually enough. You see that all the time on Dragens Den and Shark Tank.

It is also hard to convince people to do things differently. But they notice when someone else is doing that. Especially if they are saving or making more money.

 

[MossRoad]

Watermelons are hand picked.
Need something to follow you with bluetooth perimeter sensing. GPS included for location. You'd need obstacle sensitivity as well to not run into stuff.

 

[MossRoad]

Mossroad, our thought is that when it returns to the picker, it returns to the furthest spot it had traveled to previously. Accordingly, if the picker had moved down a row quite a bit, he/she would have to return to the previous spot to guide the robot further down the line. I'm not sure if this would be an issue for people or not but that's the concept as of now and what we are working to code/implement.

Get it to return to where the worker is, and not where he was, and you may have something! :thumbsup:

 

[MossRoad]

Daugen, your comments on who would buy this hit precisely on what I am trying to figure out. The electronics can be figured out. We know that with a pretty good degree of certainty.

On my family farm, we have 6 full timers who do many of our harvests. We occasionally hire local workers, who tend to be migrant laborers, also. We are very diversified so picking everything from sweet corn to tomatoes to lettuce on a fairly small scale, yet much of the time is spent lugging bins of produce from field to an F250 or wagon, and then back down to a collection point. On our operation, it would work (drone video will be forthcoming in the next few weeks), however, in fruit/vegetable production it appears as if practices vary enormously depending on crop/region/climate etc.

You know how this will work in your situation. Will this save you time and money on your farm? How many farms are like yours, and is there a market in your niche? Visit some smaller and larger operations and see how they do things. See if it would benefit them.

 

[MossRoad]

The ending to the sadest movie I ever watched...

 

[candersen10]

Another application we are curious about (getting ready to do a more professional demo video shoot in a few weeks, albeit in PA in the spring and thus not with anything to harvest, and trying to show some potential uses).

Erect a Temporary Electric Fence - YouTube

Setting up electric fences (as shown in the video above, although the video shows a pretty short distance) seems like an application where you are running a bunch of small objects (connectors, insulators, wire, etc.) from point to point. I know a lot of guys use ATVs to do it, but then they are on the ATV, off the ATV, and back on to go a bit further. Could anyone envision a Burro robotic cart running ahead of an operator in that applicatoin pulling cables to run them out and also carrying hardware for stakes etc.

What we have could be a bit of a swiss army knife, hence the question.

Thanks!

 

[candersen10]

If you had a robotic cart like the one described, or perhaps larger (seems like many people, if they express interest, would like a larger one), what types of beds might you want on it? Ones to carry bins for vegetables, higher volume dumping beds for things like branches, are there any other things that people do where they are spending a lot of time gathering objects, placing them in containers, and carrying the containers by hand shorter distances? Trying to imagine applications to show in our demo video, which we are pulling together to get feedback from a broad audience.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

Another application we are curious about (getting ready to do a more professional demo video shoot in a few weeks, albeit in PA in the spring and thus not with anything to harvest, and trying to show some potential uses).

Erect a Temporary Electric Fence - YouTube

Setting up electric fences (as shown in the video above, although the video shows a pretty short distance) seems like an application where you are running a bunch of small objects (connectors, insulators, wire, etc.) from point to point. I know a lot of guys use ATVs to do it, but then they are on the ATV, off the ATV, and back on to go a bit further. Could anyone envision a Burro robotic cart running ahead of an operator in that applicatoin pulling cables to run them out and also carrying hardware for stakes etc.

What we have could be a bit of a swiss army knife, hence the question.

Thanks!

Building fencing is something I know something about.

Temporary fencing is usually put out when the grass is growing. Usually that means I have to mow where the fence is going to go, and unless the terrain is really rough I like to use something I can drive. If I'm going to drive the line anyway I might as well take the fencing stuff with me. Temporary fencing doesn't need to be precise or pretty, the guy in the video seems to be doing OK just carrying everything and walking.

Where this might be interesting is with more permanent fence like woven wire. My toolkit for putting up woven wire is about 100 lbs, and there's an awful lot of walking back and forth. What I typically do now is park the tractor at one corner while I'm working a section, put all of the heavy tools in the front loader, and the light ones in a tool belt. But it means if I need a come-along or a drill I have to walk to where the tractor is and get it. It would be handy to have someplace where I could set a tool down, then walk ten feet and it would be right there for me to pick it up again.

It would also be handy to have something that could go get the 300lb rolls of wire, bring them to me, and hold them and roll them out.

But here's what would be really useful: if this thing can navigate, it has to know its location. If it could tell me where the fence line goes and where each post goes, that would really be something. The video shows the guy pacing off the end line before he starts putting up fence, you can waste a lot of time with that and still end up with poor results. It would be great to have a robot that you could tell, "run down to that tree and tell me how far it is from here." Oh, and while you're at it, tell me how many posts I need with 10' spacing and where they go. Now go get the posts and meet me at the spot of the first one.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

If you had a robotic cart like the one described, or perhaps larger (seems like many people, if they express interest, would like a larger one), what types of beds might you want on it? Ones to carry bins for vegetables, higher volume dumping beds for things like branches, are there any other things that people do where they are spending a lot of time gathering objects, placing them in containers, and carrying the containers by hand shorter distances? Trying to imagine applications to show in our demo video, which we are pulling together to get feedback from a broad audience.

I think you're on to something here. Separate the robotic navigation from the specific vehicle. Have different vehicles and programming for different tasks, all based upon a core set of navigational capabilities.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

You should check out the robots Amazon uses in its warehouses, it's conceptually identical to what you're talking about except it's indoors. An overview is here:
Amazon Robotics - Wikipedia

They use barcodes on the floor to navigate, something you couldn't do outdoors.

 

[candersen10]

You should check out the robots Amazon uses in its warehouses, it's conceptually identical to what you're talking about except it's indoors. An overview is here:
Amazon Robotics - Wikipedia

They use barcodes on the floor to navigate, something you couldn't do outdoors.

Yup, we have spoken to the founder of Kiva Systems (now Amazon Robotics) and are familiar with their work. We believe that their navigation methodology and the sophistication of the way their machines work is quite a bit outside of the realm of what farmers could pay and what the environment would allow however.

Here is the perfect use case for our idea we believe: About (scroll down and watch the video on that page).

Thoughts?

 

[Sysop]

Aethon makes this exact type of device for use in hospital and industrial environments. They call it a TUG.

Aethon: Autonomous Mobile Robots and Tracking Solutions

Not necessarily to follow a worker, but to autonomously deliver stuff between various points of a work area.

 

[daugen]

Sysop, good find. That touch screen interface looks to be as expensive as the OP's entire cart...I guess hospitals (still??) have big budgets for
automation. Reminds me of the use of modern big ag field mapping that goes into programmed rowcrop farming. Now the OP doesn't need his cart to open elevators ,but there might be other uses for wifi and bluetooth connectivity.

 

[candersen10]

Any thoughts on where we might go to find some early adopter farmers who might be willing to trial test prototypes and provide feedback? We are based near/in Lancaster/Chester county areas in PA so are near a lot of farmers. We have a 187 acre farm also for trials, but want external feedback. Where would you look?

Demo video of refined prototype coming soon...

 

[daugen]

Any thoughts on where we might go to find some early adopter farmers who might be willing to trial test prototypes and provide feedback? We are based near/in Lancaster/Chester county areas in PA so are near a lot of farmers. We have a 187 acre farm also for trials, but want external feedback. Where would you look?

Demo video of refined prototype coming soon...

Ironic that you are based where a rejection of modern technology has been a cornerstone of the Amish farmers.
So...maybe not locally....
for grape growing the new "wine country" of Virginia West of DC is at least an area where the property owners very likely have the money to spend early adopting some technology that interests them.
grower's associations, farmer's associations, what do you have near you?

 

[Sysop]

Sysop, good find. That touch screen interface looks to be as expensive as the OP's entire cart...I guess hospitals (still??) have big budgets for
automation. Reminds me of the use of modern big ag field mapping that goes into programmed rowcrop farming. Now the OP doesn't need his cart to open elevators ,but there might be other uses for wifi and bluetooth connectivity.

They found me, I service those machines.

Hospitals have unbelievable budgets, as do the companies that provide the technology to the hospitals. I just happened to read through the beginning of the thread, and found the concept interestingly similar, yet different. I think OP may be onto a useful idea once he gets some things worked out.