A study by research firm, ReportsnReports addresses the efficiencies the agricultural sector can gain from robots that work 24 x 7 without getting tired, and by a robot’s ability to function without making mistakes (barring technical glitches). The robots are able to perform repetitive tasks effectively, with cameras they can discern whether fruit is ripe or not and pick only the ripe fruit that can be sold. The robots can go back several times to pick fruit, while human pickers generally make one pass, two at the most. The robots can pick more fruit because they can get more ripe fruit from a tree.
Agriculture is the second greatest source of employment worldwide, and the least automated of all industries. Agriculture is the largest remaining opportunity for automation. In recent times the sector has become more mechanized worldwide so that many crops are harvested using machinery; the research further says that continued automation while contributing to profits will also be a trigger for declining employment trend as robotics are increasingly adopted.
For example,
Lely, an agricultural machinery manufacturer is a leader in the segment; the company supports technical revolutions that help evolve automated process, ranging from forage harvesting machines to milking, feeding and barn equipment. Lely equipment enables successful scaling of operations.
Another area robots are used is in harvesting. High value crops are a target of agricultural robotic development. What could be tastier than a strawberry, perfectly formed, and perfectly ripened? New agricultural robots are able to improve the delivery of consistent quality food, and to implement efficiency in managing food production. Strawberries are a high profit crop.
A new generation of machines has just been born. Harvesting robots can optimize the productivity of the farming business. Growers can get the best results in a berry farm using automated processes. Automated picking collection systems improve labor productivity, gives speed and agility to harvest operations.
Employment opportunity will come from human implementation of digitization, building APIs that make digital connections and building algorithms that make sense of digital data collected. There is plenty of work for humans to figure out how to react to alerts generated by digital algorithms.
The market for agricultural robots at 1.7 billion dollars in 2016 is expected to grow to 27.1 billion dollars by 2023. Agricultural robots are those used to plough, plant, spray, prune, milk, pick, shear, and harvest. As economies of scale are achieved, markets will grow rapidly.
For the study, many of the agriculture technology companies were profiled; such as market leaders,
Lely,
Tetra Laval,
Yaskawa / Motoman,
Yamaha and
Kuka.
