Robotic Agriculture

Let's start by defining what the word robot means, which, in so many cases, scares and attracts us at the same time. The term comes from the Czech word robota, which means 'compulsory work'. It is still a product that has its functions defined 100% and that cannot change the destination of its use by itself.

From the parking machines to the refrigerators that we have at home, we have a wide range of electronic devices that in many cases solve our day-to-day work, but in many others we can see it as an attack on the manual work of people who they could be occupying the position of the machine.

The purpose of this post is not to create controversy, but to talk a little about advances in agriculture, which can seem fascinating and innovative. The first revolution was already seen in this sector when, thanks to animals, and the elemental use of water and wind, we put aside the roughest work. After this came steam engines, engines, tractors ... In short, they were appliances, let's call them that, that increased production and reduced labor, that is, they increased the general yield of the crop.

Well here comes the news, drones. Yes, drones that will allow spraying herbicides at more or less 200 m2 / h. This is being done by the robotics company DJI. These new "air farmers" will be autonomous and will return to their base to load both spray material and batteries, and thus organize themselves among their squad partners, areas and work times.

All this, which in turn is going to provide the farmer, is information in real time on his crop, at a photographic and / or video level, on the state of the plant material, the land or the irrigation systems. Therefore, now the question is, are we facing a new industrial revolution?