Robotics for agriculture

The emphasis on agriculture by the current administration is admirable. Known for its inefficiency and notoriety as one of the most corrupt departments, having the president taking it by the horns is certainly the right prescription. Sadly, however, while we appreciate the concern shown by this current administration, it is still a fact that we are so much behind in terms of technology and infrastructure. 

Surely, as most techies maybe aware off, robotic process automation (RPA) or, simply, robotics, is so prevalent nowadays in all sectors of the economy of the developed countries in the world.  Though there are stark disparities in approaches, these developed countries’ businesses are continuously gearing up for different methodologies that would enhance their capabilities. The fact is, according to Kearney’s (one the world’s ten largest consulting firms) Senior Partner Ettore Pastore, there shall be “no slowdown in automation, information technology (IT), digitization or artificial intelligence (AI) investments for the foreseeable future.”

Admittedly, we also benefited from the progress in these developed countries as most of their firms outsourced some of their operations to us. Notably though, these are mostly office works and can be done remotely. 

Just as IT continues its stride, automation and artificial intelligence are likewise moving ahead just as fast. Though we are all aware that robots are already prevalent in the manufacturing sector, other activities outside of production are likewise in it too.  To recall, we featured last year a picking system that was developed by Exotec Solutions that can make warehouse management easy, efficient and effective.  

This company had been “working on semi-automated warehouses for e-commerce clients.” This “goods-to-person” picking system is based on tiny but customizable and agile robots called Skypods.  Amazingly, they “roam the floor and go up and down racks to pick up standardized bins of products.” 

They also provide a software, which controls the robots. This “fleet of robots uses the best of computer modeling and mathematics for fast order preparation with minimum resources.” Through this software the robots are well coordinated in the entire warehouse. 

However, not only are robots prevalent in these industries. Several startups have sprouted and some of them are looking intently on agriculture. Notably, Agtonomy (USA), a hybrid autonomy and tele-assist service platform built to address the growing labor and sustainability challenges facing agriculture, “works with established farming equipment manufacturers to turn tractors and agricultural machines into autonomous tools that can be controlled remotely by farmers.” They aim to combat food and labor shortages in the farming industry by “providing farmers low-cost, technology-enabled labor force to manage such equipment.” Thus, increase their productivity.

Complementing Agtonomy is Augury. This is a startup that uses RPA to “perform diagnostics on machines to predict and prevent them from failure.” Its product is necessary for “companies looking to decrease machine downtime and increase productivity.”

To most of us, wage earners, there could be some perceived downside, employment.  This is so as human pickers or farmworkers, among others, will be rendered useless.  However, this kind of a system does not come in cheap. So, probably, in the country we can take a sigh of relief.

But wait, automation and AI experts are not just good in developing systems, they are even better in finance. Rapid Robotics (USA), for one, recognized that. This robotics company is helping manufacturers in these difficult times and isn’t selling its robots. It offered its robots based on use at either hourly, monthly or annual rate. Therefore, without huge capital outlay, their robots come very handy. So that, if this scheme shall be made available in the country, most businesses may just use them. 

Indeed, to the wage earners, it seems scary. Yes, it is true that RPA is very common nowadays especially in developed countries. In fact, pundits predicted that “intelligent automation systems are expected to replace more than 40% of service desk interactions by 2025.” Consequently, while in 2020, the industry’s market size was US$1.29B, they predicted that it shall grow to US$7.64B by 2028.

However, to us (wage earners of a developing nation), we can find some solace on the fact that (as IT experts stressed) “this doesn’t mean that jobs are being eliminated and humans are being replaced with robots.” Rather, “RPA is designed to enhance the workplace by eliminating menial tasks, simplifying processes, and countering the possibility of human error.”