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!