The characteristics of a robotic system in the agricultural sector include its contribution to labor power, the high index of savings and an increase in the yield of crops based on data collection and analysis, automating hard manual tasks.
The international market is seeing a high demand for food and competitiveness, forecasting a growth in the agricultural industry from 60-70% by 2050, this being the solution to the lack of workers and high risk activities, generating precision for every need when it comes to crops and livestock.
There has been an increase in agricultural production that has led farmers to resort to new technologies in order to meet demand, while innovation has made it possible to design robotic arms with structure and operability in order to face the different challenges associated with farming, such as planting processes, fruit harvesting, milking or even farm maintenance and spraying with herbicides and pesticides.
The benefits of these robotic models is that they allow for a continuous workflow, they reduce agricultural inputs, and through a vision system they can even enhance the efficiency of demanding tasks by executing them quickly and accurately, allowing them to be very versatile.
Collaborative robots have also played an important role in this industry due to their friendly design, carrying out activities such as irrigation as well as constant and repetitive crop monitoring, ensuring the worker avoids contact with chemicals and reducing production costs.
In terms of cutting-edge innovations, we can also include the startup of AgriFood Tech Augean Robotics, who designed a mobile robot (Burro) that can learn the routes and re-run them autonomously, with a load capacity of approximately ¼ ton, transporting material for the people who work with the crops, improving productivity by 20-30%. This robotic technology can save a large amount of resources through automation, exploring application opportunities for agriculture needs.
Technological advances have caused a positive impact on agricultural activities, increasing and optimizing productive efficiency in order to achieve higher yields in both developed and developing countries, without increasing the amount of resources used.