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Re:Sniper robot treats 500k plants per hour with 95% less ch... by peteradio on Thursday November 17, 2022 @08:17AM (#33638419)
Here's an idea, curious for some feedback:

Make a square of tensioned cable (or rigid rail) boxing in some area of garden/food forest/farmland at a height above the plants. Have 4 modules which maintain position on opposite sides and holds a tensioned wire between them, making a tensioned wire along the x and a tensioned wire along the y. At the intersection of these wires there is a powered doohicky that can act like a spider and drop down onto the plants below and do its work. The power to the doohicky could be cable from either axis.

Re:Sniper robot treats 500k plants per hour with 95% less ch... by ping00 on Friday November 18, 2022 @03:08PM (#33661292)
It feels like this approach would constrain you from planting in an organic/spontaneous manner; you'd have to plant stuff to make sure it lines up with the cables above right?

Following the other comment re: power being king, what if we used a hub-and-spoke model where small drones with cameras (for sensing) and simple arms w/ clampers (for manipulating) perform 'bursts' of energy intensive activity and aggregate their sensory inputs into one composite report on the health of the plants? They do their thing (maybe for 10 - 15 mins or however long their battery lasts) and then fly back to the hub to charge. The hub itself could rely on a hybrid combo of guaranteed external power and solar panels.

Ofc, it'd be cool to see a cost analysis of how expensive this solution is (from both technical and financial standpoints) versus simpler, more energy-efficient human inputs (aka walk around your garden and prune trees that need it and pick berries that are ripe).

Re:Sniper robot treats 500k plants per hour with 95% less ch... by Valgrim on Friday November 18, 2022 @09:58PM (#33666354)
The solution that the commenter above would give a full 2-dimensional range to the robot across the whole field.

This technology has existed for a long time now (see cable robots, or cable-suspended cameras)