Robotic Following Cart to Replace Light Duty Tractor Tasks?

[Shaneard]

Joe, thanks for the tech tip, we have a background in autoguidance technology in the big ag equipment space so have some good ideas on how to do it (perhaps similar to what you mentioned although there are other solutions).

We know we can get it to work, but what we are looking for is a target market to launch into where there is an actual pain point for shuttling smaller payloads by hand back and forth. Grape harvest (when by hand), vegetables (when by hand), and perhaps refuse collection in certain segments (i.e. picking up dead birds in broiler/turkey growouts) are our top ones at the moment.

In essence, a Burro would function as a virtual conveyor belt from a pick point to a collection point.

View attachment 498724

That front wheel looks like it's carrying a lot of weight on it. What will happen when it rains? You know people still have to harvest when it rains or shortly thereafter and that front wheel will be stuck.

 

[aczlan]

That front wheel looks like it's carrying a lot of weight on it. What will happen when it rains? You know people still have to harvest when it rains or shortly thereafter and that front wheel will be stuck.

That was one reason I suggested tracks.
Are you looking at electric or hydraulic motors to drive the wheels?

Aaron Z

 

[candersen10]

What does the laborer do while waiting on the cart to return to him?



TBS

The cart can take many bins. The laborer leaves one empty, and when the last one remains empty, removes it from the cart and picks into it while the cart goes back to be emptied.

 

[candersen10]

That was one reason I suggested tracks.
Are you looking at electric or hydraulic motors to drive the wheels?

Aaron Z

Electric motors of course. Hydraulic motors with a diesel engine would be cost prohibitive. It would run off of removable sealed lead-acid 12V batteries.

 

[candersen10]

That front wheel looks like it's carrying a lot of weight on it. What will happen when it rains? You know people still have to harvest when it rains or shortly thereafter and that front wheel will be stuck.

The mechanical stuff is easy to solve. We grew up on working farms and know the needs of the space. Double wheels up front, second set of wheels instead of the castor, tracks, are all feasible, but at a cost.

Re: payload comments, what's the max amount of produce you can carry yourself? Perhaps 80 pounds? That's been our thinking, and thus a machine that can carry about triple the amount should be valuable, and if it does the transit as well and allows you to just keep working that should be valuable.

In essence, a virtual conveyor belt that can carry up to 250 pounds back and forth from picker to collection point, and then come back empty and ready for refill.

If it worked, would you see value in it to the point that you might pay $4-5K? If not, do you think anyone would?

 

[MossRoad]

Electric motors of course. Hydraulic motors with a diesel engine would be cost prohibitive. It would run off of removable sealed lead-acid 12V batteries.

For the past 3 years, one of my responsibilities is to maintain about 30 electric pallet jacks, several electric skid movers, a few electric skid wrappers and two electric forklifts. They all use lead-acid 12V batteries (not sealed). The batteries rarely last more than three years and the chargers fail often as well. For 25 years before that, I was in I.T., and one of my responsibilities was maintaining uninterruptible power supplies. Those use sealed lead acid batteries. They also had an expected life of only 3 years. Have you done any studies on expected battery life and replacement costs, as well as charging? Will the charger be included in the price or purchased separately? How long is the recharge time? Will it last all day out in the field or require a battery swap mid-day? etc... just some more things to think about.

 

[MossRoad]

...

In essence, a virtual conveyor belt that can carry up to 250 pounds back and forth from picker to collection point, and then come back empty and ready for refill.

...

You're counting on it being able to keep up with the human picker. Most pickers I've seen in commercial settings pick really, really fast because they get payed by how much they pick in a day. How will this machine be able to account for who picked which bin? Now you're adding coding to bins and an accounting system to keep track.

 

[aczlan]

You're counting on it being able to keep up with the human picker. Most pickers I've seen in commercial settings pick really, really fast because they get payed by how much they pick in a day. How will this machine be able to account for who picked which bin? Now you're adding coding to bins and an accounting system to keep track.

Usually they put a number with chalk, or a tag with a crew/picker number on the apple bins.

Aaron Z

 

[MossRoad]

Usually they put a number with chalk, or a tag with a crew/picker number on the apple bins.

Aaron Z

Thanks! :thumbsup:

 

[candersen10]

For the past 3 years, one of my responsibilities is to maintain about 30 electric pallet jacks, several electric skid movers, a few electric skid wrappers and two electric forklifts. They all use lead-acid 12V batteries (not sealed). The batteries rarely last more than three years and the chargers fail often as well. For 25 years before that, I was in I.T., and one of my responsibilities was maintaining uninterruptible power supplies. Those use sealed lead acid batteries. They also had an expected life of only 3 years. Have you done any studies on expected battery life and replacement costs, as well as charging? Will the charger be included in the price or purchased separately? How long is the recharge time? Will it last all day out in the field or require a battery swap mid-day? etc... just some more things to think about.

Single sealed lead acid battery to run it for 7-10 miles with a 250 pound payload is maybe 100 bucks. Does 3 years of life out of it sound so bad?