Precision farming doesn't just work for wheat and corn; it also works for greenhouse plants, as researchers discovered at MIT.
A postdoctoral assistant at the university used a sensor system for potted plants to detect how much water or nutrients the plants needed and deployed robots to take care of them. Nikolaus Correll gave the robots a mechanical arm and a pump so that they could pick fruit, water and pollinate the plants.
He and Professor Daniela Rus developed an undergraduate course that gave students the chance to build robotic gardens and work in teams to develop new ideas based on the research. The students planted tomato plants in pots and stuck them in artificial turf. They programmed the robots and supervised them in what Rus calls a precision agriculture system.
The sensors and robots allow the students to target what each plant needs instead of giving them all the same amount of care. The robots also reduce the backbreaking work that harvesters normally do to gather specialty crops such as fruit.
The researchers plan to create an autonomous greenhouse using the robots, plants and sensors.
For the complete press release, visit the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
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