Robotic Following Cart to Replace Light Duty Tractor Tasks?

[MossRoad]

NICE! Now there's an application that wasn't discussed originally.

 

[candersen10]

60,000 hours of operation at this point with about 100 running last year. Mostly in table grapes (moving around fruit, scouting, picking), blueberries, caneberries, and nurseries.

Now adding mowing, exploring spraying, and of course expanding autonomous picking capabilities. Will be showing our newer generation 8 machines at Booth GS6 at the World ag expo February 8-10th where we are a top 10 product for the event.

If you had a little machine that could run routes autonomously (up/down rows, in patterns, back and forth on routes) - what types of things might you want it to do? Spraying, mowing, hauling, towing, others?

 

[MasseyFerg231]

rScotty, yes of course. Most fresh produce in the US is grown in California. This year, min wage has been set to 13/hour and you can work crews for 50 hours a week before you hit overtime. Next year, that clicks up to 14/hour min plus a limit of 45 hours / week before you hit 1.5X overtime. The year after (2022), that clicks up to 15/hour and just a 40 hour work week. In essence, each year by law labor gets 7 to 8% more expensive, and 10 to 11% less available.

In short, the particularly labor-intensive crops are hitting a threshold where labor renders them no-longer sustainable. This is why 80% of the worlds almonds are grown in California - it's one of the only high-value crops that can be all machine harvested. For table grapes, caneberries, stone fruit, fresh market blueberries, and many other crops, there's no mechanization available.

This is where our Burros slot in. Autonomy you can buy today (there's virtually nothing else on the market) in a people-scale platform that can later be expanded towards further automation.

We are constantly thinking about the what else to add question also. Should we add a 26 to 33 inch mower deck to mow for example? We generally look at these questions through the lens of labor - if there are a lot of people doing the work, there's likely high value via automation.


View attachment 681301

String trimmer for fence / base of trees option?

 

[CADplans]

60,000 hours of operation at this point with about 100 running last year. Mostly in table grapes (moving around fruit, scouting, picking), blueberries, caneberries, and nurseries.

If you had a little machine that could run routes autonomously (up/down rows, in patterns, back and forth on routes) - what types of things might you want it to do? Spraying, mowing, hauling, towing, others?

I would like to see the machines in operation for more than 1/3 of a year before I would be interested.
(60,000/100 = 600 There are 2080 work hours in a typical year)

A local city has these little scooters that I guess can be rented,, sitting all over the town.
They are all dying in a half of a year.

If your numbers were 60,000 hours of operation with about 10 running last year,
THAT would be more impressive performance.

 

[candersen10]

I would like to see the machines in operation for more than 1/3 of a year before I would be interested.
(60,000/100 = 600 There are 2080 work hours in a typical year)

A local city has these little scooters that I guess can be rented,, sitting all over the town.
They are all dying in a half of a year.

If your numbers were 60,000 hours of operation with about 10 running last year,
THAT would be more impressive performance.

Max hours on machines are around 4000, lowest in the 500 range. This is from 1-2 seasons of use only which seems like quite a few hours.

how many hours are on your 584 IH 4WD? Over 3-4000? Having worked in the industry, and grown up around a lot of equipment, even the oldest stuff we have on my family farm (Farmall 404s) only have like 6-8000 hours and they are from the 60s…

 

[candersen10]

String trimmer for fence / base of trees option?

We’re now working on a 33 inch electric deck on one, which could run for about 7-8 hours and in theory do 5-6 acres in a day - likely use would be up/down rows mowing though in our view (in grapes, berries, etc.) where the robots can easily go up/down rows sequently to get through a full block.

When you say string trimmer you mean to get up against perimeter stuff?

 

[CADplans]

Max hours on machines are around 4000, lowest in the 500 range. This is from 1-2 seasons of use only which seems like quite a few hours.

how many hours are on your 584 IH 4WD? Over 3-4000? Having worked in the industry, and grown up around a lot of equipment, even the oldest stuff we have on my family farm (Farmall 404s) only have like 6-8000 hours and they are from the 60s…

The reason human operated machines are low hours is because of lazy humans,, me included.
My 584 IH might have had 10,000 hours on it in the last two years, if it were autonomous and multi-task ready.
An autonomous machine, such as this, or a CNC machining center, needs to have high hours to pay their way.
The autonomous machine does not need bathroom breaks, and vacations.
The autonomous machine needs to multi-task to get MANY hours, doing multiple tasks, as needed, and when it is available.

 

[candersen10]

The reason human operated machines are low hours is because of lazy humans,, me included.
My 584 IH might have had 10,000 hours on it in the last two years, if it were autonomous and multi-task ready.
An autonomous machine, such as this, or a CNC machining center, needs to have high hours to pay their way.
The autonomous machine does not need bathroom breaks, and vacations.
The autonomous machine needs to multi-task to get MANY hours, doing multiple tasks, as needed, and when it is available.

500-1000 hours = one season of use 6 days a week 5-8 months of the Year. Max machines have 2 of that and are working well.

What seems to matter most to people from what I’ve seen is primarily fhow well an autonomy stack handles variable situations - i.e. how many miles or hours can a machine run while driving the way it should drive in a very variable world. A CNC Machine does a repeated task in a fixed environment - a robot driving on farm does a repeated task in an unconstrained dynamic environment that changes Hour by hour day by day Etc. That seems to be the hard part...

 

[daugen]

it's exciting to see what you have accomplished in addition to running your own business.
would you confirm what battery tech you are using? lithium? regular agm?
how many charge cycles will current tech give you?

now if they could automatically dock into a charger like a Roomba vac, that would be interesting, but I'm sure not hard
to plug in, like you do with your golf cart when done

 

[candersen10]

it's exciting to see what you have accomplished in addition to running your own business.
would you confirm what battery tech you are using? lithium? regular agm?
how many charge cycles will current tech give you?

now if they could automatically dock into a charger like a Roomba vac, that would be interesting, but I'm sure not hard
to plug in, like you do with your golf cart when done

AGM is base option - most growers have been going for LFPs which are supposed to be good for about 4000 cycles, are much lighter/higher powered, and still reasonably priced.