In Episode 169 of The Robotic Report Podcast, co-hosts Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman recap the 2024 FIRA occasion with a number of interviews from distributors attending the present.
On this week’s featured interview, editor Eugene Demaitre speaks with Dr. Russ Tedrake, vp of robotics analysis at Toyota Analysis Institute (TRI), and Scott Kuindersma, director of robotics analysis at Boston Dynamics. They talk about their collaboration on humanoid robotics and the combination of synthetic intelligence by way of massive habits fashions.
The researchers additionally discover the challenges and alternatives in growing general-purpose robots, the significance of human involvement in studying processes, and the position of knowledge in enhancing robotic capabilities. As well as, the dialogue touches on sensible functions, deployment methods, and the importance of rigorous analysis in advancing robotics expertise.
Present timeline
- 6:30 – Superior Farm Interview
- 15:52 – Reservoir Farms Interview
- 24:27 – Twisted Fields/Rotate8 Interview
- 31:58 – Bluewhite Interview
- 43:02 – Featured interview with Russ Tedrake of TRI and Scott Kuindersma of Boston Dynamics
FIRA 2024 recap
Oitzman attended the 2025 FIRA occasion for agricultural robotics in Woodland, Calif. It featured outside demonstrations in a specifically cultivated subject within the car parking zone of the Yolo County fairgrounds.
The brand new Amiga-Max cell robotic platform from Farm-ng. | Credit score: The Robotic Report
On the present’s first night time, Superior Farm Applied sciences hosted an apple harvester demo at its headquarters in Davis, Calif.
For the previous 20 years, apple growers have begun planting new orchards much like vineyards, utilizing a trellis planting technique. The bushes are planted nearer collectively, after which all the branches are skilled right into a 2D trellis type, the place the bushes are solely a few 1 ft. huge by 4 ft. lengthy by 15 ft. tall.
This creates a “flat canyon” between rows simpler to drive down and the fruit will get extra daylight. It’s additionally excellent for automation just like the Superior Farm robots. The Superior Farm check trellis makes use of 3D-printed apples on magnets connected to faux bushes, nevertheless it works properly for simulating an precise orchard. The podcast options an interview with Superior Farms CEO Kyle Cobb.
Superior Farms is testing its autonomous apple-picking robotic in Washington this fall. | Credit score: Mike Oitzman, The Robotic Report
Reservoir Farms introduced a brand new agtech incubator that may open within the first half of 2025 with two websites, one in Salinas and the opposite within the Central Valley. It offers a maker house for constructing, with shared machine instruments plus safe storage onsite within the type of a storage container. Every website can even function onsite cultivated fields for testing of the robots.
The corporate will plant no matter crop is vital to the startups onsite. Additionally it is growing partnerships with UC Merced and different native faculties and universities to offer amenities for senior tasks or analysis labs on campus entry to fields. The podcast options an interview with Reservoir Farms CEO Danny Bernstein.
At FIRA, we bumped into good friend of the present Daniel Theobald. He was on the expo along with his Twisted Fields farm, which can be an agtech incubator. On show was a prototype robotic being developed at Twisted Farms by the brand new firm Rotate8. I met CEO Katie Bradford to study extra in regards to the new enterprise. The corporate can be launching formally in early 2025.
Lastly, we caught up with Bluewhite‘s CEO Ben Alfi, to study extra a few new partnership with CNH tractors. Bluewhite has fully productized its automation bundle to retrofit CNH tractors with full autonomy, and it’s now coaching CNH native distributors to carry out the retrofits within the fields or equip a model new CNH tractor because it’s bought.
The result’s that Bluewhite ought to start to see full-scale deployments wherever all over the world the place CNH tractors are being bought and supported.
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