Robots in agriculture
This cute little chap is Harvey, a robotic shifter of pot plants. Pot plants need to be moved around a lot within nurseries as they grow, for instance to allow the right spacing between them. It is tedious, time-consuming work, but Harvey doesn't mind. Using sophisticated on-board sensors and simple programming, he can reliably shuffle his charges from here to there and back again. And again... And with a price tag of $30,000, the manufacturers are confident he will be cost-effective for many growers. The management of pot plants is not the most obvious application of the emerging robotics industry...