Samuel Tan's List: Robotics & PBL

• The systems use sensors on autonomous robotic vehicles or at fixed sites within the orchards to gather a multitude of data about tree health and crop status. Robotic vehicles will be used to administer precise amounts of water or agricultural chemicals to specific areas or trees. The vehicles also will be used to automate routine tasks such as mowing between tree rows.
• Mobile sensors and computer tracking will enable growers to monitor their orchards in unprecedented detail,
• “Growers can use the data generated by this new approach to make decisions throughout the year regarding pest management, pruning, fertilization, irrigation and yield estimates,
• including a vacuum-assisted device that the CASC will use for apple harvesting, but the emphasis will be on aiding human harvesters, rather than replacing them.
  

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• y a robot working much longer hours than humans. And then there are times when robots simply offer a required level of precision that humans cannot provide.
• Non-Herbicidal "GreenWeeder"
   In general, weed eradication takes places two to three weeks into most of the broad-acre crop growth.  Weed eradication requires the two stages of weed detection and weed destruction.  The systems that are currently operating have crude means of detecting weeds.  Any plants that appear to absorb more nitrogen are considered a weed.  Weed destruction is mostly by spraying a herbicide. The current practices do not allow the herbicide treatments to be optimized to suit the weeds to be eradicated as there are no means of identifying the individual weed types.  Hence there is a need to develop methodologies to detect the prevalence and the individual weed types so that the correct treatment and dosage can be applied to individual weed types.

• WalkThroughThenWork™

  • Similar to the record function on the NXT

• kroaches are a nasty nuisance. But engineers are now using them as role models for designing robots.

• Rusk, N., Resnick, M., Berg, R., and Pezalla-Granlund, M. (2008). New Pathways into Robotics: Strategies for Broadening Participation. Journal of Science Education and Technology, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 59-69.

• • Carnegie Mellon University, National Robotics Research Consortium, Pittsburgh, US - M2000 Paint Stripping Robot
   
  • Carnegie Mellon University, The Robotics Institute, Sensor Based Planning Laboratory, US - Vacuum Cleaning Robot

• slo-mo video of some captivating critters.

  • use of video for analysis of the walking styles of animals