What are examples of robotics in agriculture?

1. Autonomous Tractor: Autonomous tractors are used to automate many of the labor-intensive tasks involved in land preparation and cultivation such as plowing, weeding and harvesting. For example, John Deere’s autonomous tractor uses GPS navigation technology to map out a field before beginning its operations. The equipment then follows pre-programmed instructions while avoiding obstacles like trees or rocks that may be in its path. This helps reduce the amount of labour needed for agricultural tasks, while increasing productivity and efficiency.

2. Drone Spraying: Drone spraying is a relatively new application of robotics technology in agriculture that has been gaining popularity recently due to its potential for fast, efficient crop protection from pests and diseases without manual intervention on the ground level. Drones equipped with specialised sensors can scan crops for signs of damage caused by insects or other pests and then autonomously proceed to apply pesticides only where required – reducing costs associated with overuse of chemicals as well as any human harm from direct contact with pesticides during traditional application methods (eg via crop dusting).

3. Harvesting Robots: Robotics have also been employed in fruit harvesting operations where robots have been designed which are capable of navigating a farm field autonomously, scanning the environment for ripe produce based on visual cues such as size and colour before picking up each item individually using an extendable arm mounted onto their mainframe body structure – once successfully harvested it will place each good into bins located at their side until they reach capacity at which point they offload these containers before continuing further down their field pathway looking for additional fruits/vegetables to harvest accordingly.