A year and several iterations through the engineering design process later, I want to introduce you to my robot with a corny name – CropBot. But, before I explain how CropBot works, I just want to mention one thing. The agriculture industry is quickly being inundated by robots. The farm of the future will be a high-tech automated system that produces more food using fewer resources for an ever-growing population. And, although CropBot is more of a concept robot than a full-on industrial planting robot, it proves a point – solutions to society’s problems and challenges can come from anywhere.
CropBot is a track-driven tele-op TETRIX robot that is controlled by a SONY PS4 DUALSHOCK 4 game controller. It has two modes for planting crops – manual and automatic. Included on the robot is an LCD screen used for adjusting the seed spacing, seed depth, amount of water to add to a seed, light sensitivity, and many more customizable settings. When these settings are input into the TETRIX PRIZM® controller using the PS4 game controller, the robot goes through some calibration before being ready to plant whatever seeds are loaded into its hopper.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://community.robotshop.com/blog/show/gardening-made-easy-introducing-cropbot-2