Robot Farming Revolution: Meet Tom, Dick & Harry
A hybrid human/bot team using Intel powered laptops to make history. Meet Tom – not a man or a boy, but a bot.
And not any old robot at that. Operated by PCs and tablets powered by Intel® Core™ processors, Tom can gather digital imagery – up to six terabytes of data a day – from broad acre arable farming fields. In layman’s speak, that’s crops like wheat, barley, cereals and oats. Tom sends his thousands of images to Wilma, Artificial Intelligence software (trained by agronomists) – aka the bots’ boss. She then decodes the data into information that farmers can use to supercharge precision, productivity, profitability - and importantly, sustainability.
An unaffordable model
Clear as mud? Well, to explain more, it’s now time to introduce Sam Watson Jones. He’s the human boss – Co-Founder of the Small Robot Company.
“I grew up on a farm, but started my professional life in management consultancy,” explains Sam Watson Jones. “But after discovering the extent to which the farming industry was crying out for transformation, I went home in my late 20s to investigate. I discovered that my dad still had all his farming records on paper; he didn’t use Excel. I started digitising everything and I was stunned; there had been no progress in productivity in 20 years, despite costs increasing. The model was clearly unaffordable.”
This discovery led Sam to found the Small Robot Company and develop a PC-based solution to revolutionise farming.
Hybrid & agile
Headquartered in Hampshire, the Small Robot Company has a team of more than 50 – a big jump from just 18 in early 2020. From robotic, mechanical and software engineers, to designers and management – and an AI machine learning team in Europe – SRC’s workforce has always been hybrid in model. And during the Covid pandemic, many had to be hired without being able to meet in person – astonishing, considering that in the wake of COVID-19, only 30% of organisations1 were fully prepared to migrate their entire workforce to a remote working environment.
“Everyone has an Intel core PC laptop,” says Sam Watson Jones. “That’s enabled us to be remote and highly flexible. If the robotic engineers were in the workshop, the mechanical engineers needed to be elsewhere. And then the devices come with us into the fields to test the robots. I consider what we are doing as building mobile computers that interact with nature. I think that’s one of the great next frontiers for computing.”
Per plant precision
Sam and his team are now focusing on ‘per plant farming’ – the ability to gather intelligence on individual plants and recognise things like nutrient and disease levels, weeds, the impact of weather; the list goes on. In this way, farmers make precise data-driven decisions – such as levels of pesticides or fungicides needed (a controversial aspect of present-day farming). In fact, Dick, another robot due for commercial release in about a year, will be able to use his electronic arm to zap individual weeds – eradicating the need for chemicals.
“The farm will become more dematerialised,” says SRC boss, Sam. “Before now, farmers have had to be in a field to understand it, and decisions are highly subjective. Intelligent robots and supported by PCs mean a farmer will be able to wake up to see immediately what’s happened to the crops overnight. There has always been a physical constraint to a farm business; you need to be there in person. In the future, you could live in the Outer Hebrides, but your farm could be in Hampshire.”
Workforce flexibility
Intel research shows that an improvement of just 5% in employee engagement could lead to a 3% increase in bottom line revenue2. And the Small Robot Company is certainly demonstrating how PCs can supercharge engagement with workforce flexibility – in turn, making an entire industry more agile.
Laptops on Intel vPro® with Evo™ design have all-day battery life and quick charge functionality to support this capability – as well as heightened connectivity. Featuring the ability to use enterprise applications seamlessly, the choice of laptop or 2-in-1, touchscreen functionality, and advanced features for connecting to peripherals and displays, teams can create their ideal work experience.
Back to trailblazing bot Tom, and he’s about to break new ground by beginning his professional life shortly on farms in Hampshire – and beyond. Dick, the weed-zapper, is about a year away from commercial viability. While Harry, a digital planting robot, is still an early concept. There are huge ambitions for this trio – starting with an unearthing an entirely different approach to farming and food production.
1 Source: https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2020/12/23/secure-shift-remote-work