An Overview of Cooperative Robotics in Agriculture

Agricultural robotics has been a popular subject in recent years from an academic as well as a commercial point of view. This is because agricultural robotics addresses critical issues such as seasonal shortages in manual labor, e.g., during harvest, as well as the increasing concern regarding environmentally friendly practices. On one hand, several individual agricultural robots have already been developed for specific tasks (e.g., for monitoring, spraying, harvesting, transport, etc.) with varying degrees of effectiveness. On the other hand, the use of cooperative teams of agricultural robots in farming tasks is not as widespread; yet, it is an emerging trend. This paper presents a comprehensive overview of the work carried out so far in the area of cooperative agricultural robotics and identifies the state-of-the-art. This paper also outlines challenges to be addressed in fully automating agricultural production; the latter is promising for sustaining an increasingly vast human population, especially in cases of pandemics such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

A Future-Focused View of the Regulation of Rural Technology

There has been an explosion of innovation in agricultural technologies, but whether the anticipated benefits are fully realised depends partly upon with the institutional structures are supportive. Many types of law will shape what innovations are viable and the scale of the economic returns. Australia does not have a coherent strategy for future rural regulation that will both minimise the public risks and increase the private opportunities from future agricultural innovation. This paper addresses these issues. It considers the diverse legal issues that will affect these opportunities, and it looks particularly at agricultural robotics as an example of the many ways in which legal issues will shape opportunities from innovation. It proposes that an integrated strategy, based on a careful analysis of future issues, would be a significant contributor to Australia’s agricultural sector and to its innovating industries.

Concept and Realization of a Novel Test Method Using a Dynamic Test Stand for Detecting Persons by Sensor Systems on Autonomous Agricultural Robotics

As an essential part for the development of autonomous agricultural robotics, the functional safety of autonomous agricultural machines is largely based on the functionality and robustness of non-contact sensor systems for human protection. This article presents a new step in the development of autonomous agricultural machine with a concept and the realization of a novel test method using a dynamic test stand on an agricultural farm in outdoor areas. With this test method, commercially available sensor systems are tested in a long-term test around the clock for 365 days a year and 24 h a day on a dynamic test stand in continuous outdoor use. A test over a longer period of time is needed to test as much as possible all occurring environmental conditions. This test is determined by the naturally occurring environmental conditions. This fact corresponds to the reality of unpredictable/determinable environmental conditions in the field and makes the test method and test stand so unique. The focus of the developed test methods is on creating own real environment detection areas (REDAs) for each sensor system, which can be used to compare and evaluate the autonomous human detection of the sensor systems for the functional safety of autonomous agricultural robots with a humanoid test target. Sensor manufacturers from industry and the automotive sector provide their sensor systems to have their sensors tested in cooperation with the TÜV.