Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
used for agricultural production, one operator is required for each machine result-
ing in a 1:1 ratio of human operators to number of machines. Row crop operations
such as grain harvesting require at least two machines with one operator for each
machine. The capability to manage and monitor both the harvester and the garin cart
by one operator can increase the field efficiency and reduce labor costs drastically.
The transition to fully autonomous operation will include a progression that begins
with smaller, low-power machines operated under controlled settings. When pos-
sible, fences or natural barriers might be used to corral errant vehicles. Lowenberg-
DeBoer (2002) recognized this possibility when he concluded “Autonomous farm
equipment may be in our future, but there are important reasons for thinking that it
may not be just replacing the human driver with a computer. It may mean a rethink-
ing of how crop production is done. In particular, once the driver is not needed,
bigger is no longer better. Crop production may be done better and cheaper with a
swarm of small machines than with a few large ones.”
5.9
FIRST-GENERATION UNMANNED MACHINES
First-generation autonomous machines require constant supervision despite the fact
that they are autonomous. These machines lack the intelligence to cope with cir-
cumstances that are unexpected and dynamic. In the event of an emergency, the
autonomous machine will either stop completely or alert a remote supervisor to aid
it in mitigating the emergency. A few examples of Gen-I autonomous are discussed
in this section.
Sensing strategies to support full autonomous operation, although not commer-
cialized, continues to be of interest to researchers. For example, investigators at
the Carnegie Mellon Robot Institute developed an autonomous harvesting machine
(Figure 5.12) that harvested more than 40 ha of crop (Pilarski et al., 2002) without
FIGURE 5.12
Demeter mower-conditioner system for automated mowing and conditioning
of forage crops. (Pilarski, T. et al.,
Autonomous Robots
, 13, 9-20, 2002. With permission.)
