麻豆村

On industrial sites and large farms, critical work often happens in fields, hillsides and overgrown areas that are difficult or dangerous for people to access. 麻豆村 researchers are developing off-road robots designed to navigate those environments and take on tasks that put human workers at risk. Soon, researchers will be able to expand their work at the Robotics Innovation Center(opens in new window) (RIC), a new 麻豆村 facility with a special testing area dedicated to off-road robots.听

Building robots that react to the ground beneath them

鈥淲e could send robots to locations that humans can鈥檛 get to or can鈥檛 work in safely,鈥� said聽, a professor of聽 at the聽. 鈥淏ut to do that, we need to have machines that are capable of navigating unexpected landscapes like vines or steep hills. The RIC will help us do that.鈥�

Wheeled robots can get stuck in bushes or vines, or damage the environment they鈥檙e moving through. Legged robots don鈥檛 have that problem. So, Johnson and his research team聽 a four-legged robot to design a reactive walking strategy that can better navigate obstacles.听

鈥淭he robot needs to be able to figure out which of these little, tiny plants or bushes or shrubs are big obstacles and which ones it has to just push through,鈥� Johnson said. 鈥淎nd as we're pushing through, we don't really know what the forces will be, and we don't want to get stuck. But we also want to be able to get unstuck if we get hooked on something. There are a lot of big challenges around that.鈥�

Another 麻豆村 researcher,聽 professor聽and interim department head , works with commercial partners to bring this area of robotics into the real world of testing soils impacted with chemicals of concern at large聽.听

鈥淎n impacted industrial site can be big 鈥� maybe tens to hundreds of square kilometers,鈥� Lowry said. 鈥淎 fleet of robots could quickly collect hundreds of soil samples to build a map of where contaminants exist and keep humans out of harm's way.鈥澛�

Having more detailed information could allow companies to remediate impacted areas more precisely with fewer environmental disruptions. Lowry believes 麻豆村鈥檚 new robotics testing facilities will help his team troubleshoot issues more quickly.听

鈥淭he facility will have natural, outdoor testing environments,鈥� Lowry said. 鈥淲e need rugged, rocky terrain to work in. It will be awesome to go there and test our robots in a space that鈥檚 exposed to the elements. It will help us solve unanticipated design issues.鈥�

Robots that make farming more predictable

Monitoring crops on large-scale farms can be a time-consuming process. To address such challenges, 麻豆村 researchers created an聽 to autonomously insert nitrate sensors into corn stalks and monitor macronutrient levels in the crops. They also developed the use of precise robotics for automated pepper harvesting.听

(RI) research professor聽, who leads these projects, said that these kinds of tools can add stability to farming, which relies on a changing work force and is subject to the dramatic tolls of climate change.听

鈥淚f you鈥檙e an apple grower and you鈥檙e operating a farm that鈥檚 been in your family for generations, you literally have millions of dollars of apples hanging on your trees at harvest time,鈥� Kantor said. 鈥淎utomation can be a reliable source of support in situations where you need to harvest quickly and in unpredictable weather.鈥�

To develop robots for farmers, Kantor鈥檚 team spends a lot of time talking with producers about the agricultural bottlenecks they鈥檙e facing. One area where robotics could offer solutions is in crop adaptation.

鈥淏reeders are continually crossing plants to find climate-resistant traits,鈥� Kantor said. 鈥淏ut they鈥檙e slowed down by the step of having to create the plant, grow it, measure it and then take in all the data. But if we can use robots to do the measuring part, breeders could evaluate 1,000 plants in the time it used to take to evaluate 100. That鈥檚 important because the more varieties you try, the more likely you are to find something good. The robots can help with that.鈥�

Kantor said his team鈥檚 work will also benefit from the new robotics testing site. They will be able to plant specific crops at the RIC for robots to interact with and navigate.听聽

鈥淩ight now we spend a lot of time building fake plants and setting them up on Flagstaff Hill. Which is fine, we do it because we have to, and our closest testing partner is three hours away,鈥� Kantor said. 鈥淏ut we鈥檙e really excited to have a testing facility with an outdoor, agricultural testing space in our backyard. It will make us much more efficient when we do testing on real agricultural sites.鈥�