One of the major advantages of robotics is their flexibility to perform a variety of tasks and applications in any environment. They are more precise and consistent than people.
They increase production and profit margin, as they can accomplish tasks more quickly. Robots can work 24 hours a day since they do not need holidays, sick days, or breaks. They also make fewer mistakes than people and save time. Robots eliminate work that is dangerous to humans.
All these qualities make robots the perfect choice for agriculture, especially as farms grow in size. Traditionally, agriculture requires numerous repetitions and hard labor with considerably low speed for planting, irrigation, fertilization, monitoring, and harvesting a large area of crops. But today, a single robot can do all these processes with less dependency on human labor.
In this post, we will briefly look at some of the common advantages and disadvantages of robots in agriculture.
Advantages
- The robots are not getting sick or tired, and the time off is not needed.
- With higher speeds and closer tolerances, they can operate with fewer errors.
- They make fewer errors and operate at higher velocities and higher quality.
- The robots can reduce the use of pesticides by up to 80% of the farm.
- In different fields, robots are more efficient and can work around trees, rocks, ponds, and other obstacles easily.
- For technicians, the robots can create jobs that can fix the robots.
- The robots can deliver products of high quality and lower the cost of production.
- Robots gantry can function as both fertilizer or liquid sprays and, most importantly, as an automatic self-control system that meets weather conditions.
- They can be small in size, allowing to accumulate near-crop data and perform mechanical weeding, mowing, spraying, and fertilizing.
- Robotic cameras and sensors are capable of detecting weeds, identifying pests, parasites or diseases, and other stress. Usually, the sensors are selective and are only used to spray on the affected area.
- Robots provide an opportunity to replace human operators with a good return on investment by providing effective solutions.
Disadvantages
- It costs a lot of money to make or buy robots.
- They need maintenance to keep them running.
- The farmers can lose their jobs.
- The robots can change the culture / the emotional appeal of agriculture.
- Energy cost and maintenance.
- The high cost of research and development.
- Lack of access to poor farmers.
