An orange sun peers over the trees as green crops shimmer with
morning dew. In the distance, cows are mooing. A farmer sets
his coffee mug on the dashboard of his pickup, boots up a
laptop computer and releases his team of robots.

It may sound strange now. But in the not-too-distant future,
unmanned vehicles could do a lot of work on the farm, say two
scientists with the University of Georgia College of
Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. They already have a
prototype.

The UGA “Row-bot” is a computer-guided vehicle that can perform
many farm tasks: check the health of plants and fields, monitor
cattle, spray for bugs.

Autonomous vehicle

It’s the mechanical brainchild of Glen Rains, an agricultural
engineer, and Stuart Pocknee, program coordinator with the
National Environmentally Sound Production Agriculture
Laboratory in Tifton, Ga.

“What we’d like to develop from this is an autonomous vehicle
that could be fitted with various sensors and equipment that
could be used to work in and remotely view a field,” Rains
said.

The UGA Row-bot now is about the size of a stripped-down mid-
sized car. It stands about 3 feet off the ground on four
wheels. Guided by Global Positioning Satellite (GPS)technology,
it has various sensors to control and monitor its movements.
It’s connected to a computer network and can be accessed
through the Internet.

Labor-saving scout

Depending on the size of the farm, a team of these row-bots
could be networked together and programmed to scout fields for
insect or disease damage, take soil samples or other data and
report it back in real time to a farmer on a computer, Rains
said. Or, it could return to a shed, where a farmer could
download the data for analysis.

Using wireless technology, a farmer with mobile Internet access
could connect with his row-bots and see what they see through a
camera attached to them.

“A farmer could be in another field or on vacation and check on
his crop,” Rains said.

It could be a labor-saving tool for farmers, Pocknee said. The
row-bots could be equipped with sprayers or other field
equipment and sent into fields to work. And they wouldn’t care
if the sun went down. Using the GPS technology, they could work
at night — virtually 24-hours a day.

Farm tractor drivers shouldn’t start looking for another line
of work just yet, Pocknee said. But taking a few computer
technology classes wouldn’t hurt.

Or course, there are safety concerns, they say, when the
immediate decision-making capability of a human driver is
removed. But the row-bot could also eliminate human errors.

They envision a much smaller final row-bot, about the size of a
riding lawnmower, for actual use on a farm. It would
automatically shut down if it became disconnected from the
network or encountered an object in a field it couldn’t
recognize. It would send a message of trouble to the farmer.

Farm-bots

Robots are already being used on some farms.

Some dairy farmers in Europe use them to milk their cows. And
the practice is starting to take hold on U.S. dairies.
Agribusiness companies are also looking into similar robot-like
vehicles for row-crop farmers all over the world.

The agriculture industry has long been in the forefront of
technological advances. The farm tractor was revolutionary when
it replaced the mule-drawn rigs of the past. And genetically
modified crops are now common.

The UGA scientists admit it may take a while for people to get
used to farming robots. But like other advances, if robots can
prove to be safe, practical, time- and cost-efficient farm
tools, they could show up in fields sooner than you think.