The farming robots that will feed the world | Hard Reset

Summary

Dans ce script, on découvre comment la robotisation transforme l'agriculture avec l'introduction de robots capables de cueillir des fruits mûrs comme les fraises. La société Dogtooth, fondée par Duncan et Ed, a conçu ces robots pour répondre à la pénurie de main-d'œuvre agricole et réduire les pertes de fruits. Les robots, équipés de caméras à haute définition et de systèmes d'inspection, sélectionnent les fruits sans les endommager. Ils sont conçus pour travailler en équipe avec les humains, effectuant des tâches fastidieuses et permettant aux humains de se concentrer sur des activités qui nécessitent de la créativité et de la pensée critique. L'objectif est non pas de remplacer les travailleurs humains, mais de les aider, tout en réfléchissant à l'avenir du travail physique et à l'impact potentiel de l'intelligence artificielle sur le marché du travail.

Takeaways

• 🤖 L'avancée de la robotique permet de créer des robots capables de récolter des fruits mûrs comme les fraises, un processus qui était jusqu'à récemment considéré comme de la science-fiction.
• 📈 Il existe déjà de l'automatisation dans les fermes, comme les tracteurs guidés par GPS, mais les robots de récolte de fruits sont un développement nouveau.
• 🍓 La nécessité de récolter délicatement les fraises intactes nécessite une intelligence et une dextérité particulières, que ces robots peuvent fournir.
• 🚜 Il est de plus en plus difficile de trouver la main-d'œuvre humaine nécessaire pour la récolte des fruits, ce qui a entraîné une perte de 35 millions de livres sterling de fruits gaspillée l'année dernière au Royaume-Uni.
• 🤝 L'objectif des robots n'est pas de remplacer les travailleurs humains, mais plutôt de les aider en prenant en charge les tâches pénibles et répétitives.
• 💡 Les robots de Dogtooth sont conçus avec une intelligence artificielle et une vision par ordinateur pour fonctionner dans un environnement agricole complexe et变量.
• 🛠️ La conception de ces robots nécessite l'utilisation de technologies personnalisées, car l'équipe de Dogtooth a dû créer pratiquement chaque partie du robot à partir de zéro.
• 🌱 Les robots sont également capables de récolter des données, ce qui permet de développer des modèles de prévision de rendement pour améliorer l'efficacité de la production agricole.
• 🌍 L'utilisation de robots dans la récolte peut révolutionner l'économie de la production alimentaire et aider à réduire les émissions de carbone en permettant la culture de légumes plus près de leur consommation.
• 🧐 Il y a un potentiel pour que les robots ne se limitent pas à l'agriculture, mais qu'ils puissent également être utilisés dans d'autres environnements dynamiques et imprévisibles, comme les magasins, les hôpitaux ou les maisons.
• 🚀 L'intelligence artificielle appliquée aux robots a le potentiel de transformer complètement notre compréhension du travail physique, mais il est crucial de gérer cette transition de manière éthique et responsable pour éviter les perturbations du marché du travail.

Q & A

Quelle est la capacité unique d'un robot agricole décrite dans le script ?

Le robot agricole décrit dans le script a la capacité unique de cueillir des fruits mous comme les fraises, chose qui était considérée comme presque de la science-fiction jusqu'à récemment.

Pourquoi est-il difficile de trouver du personnel pour cueillir les fraises ?

Il est difficile de trouver du personnel pour cueillir les fraises en raison d'une pénurie de main-d'œuvre humaine disponible pour les récoltes, ce qui a entraîné la perte de 35 millions de livres sterling de fruits non récoltés l'année précédente au Royaume-Uni.

Comment les robots peuvent-ils aider à résoudre le problème de la pénurie de main-d'œuvre ?

Les robots, en devenant plus intelligents et habiles, peuvent prendre en charge certaines des tâches fastidieuses et répétitives, permettant ainsi aux humains de se concentrer sur des tâches qui nécessitent des compétences spéciales ou un jugement humain.

Quels sont les défis auxquels les concepteurs de robots doivent faire face pour qu'ils fonctionnent dans un environnement agricole ?

Les concepteurs de robots doivent concevoir des robots capables de fonctionner dans un environnement dynamique et imprévisible comme une ferme, avec des technologies élaborées pour permettre la flexibilité et la précision nécessaires pour la récolte des fruits.

Comment les robots de Dogtooth sont-ils conçus pour fonctionner dans un environnement de ferme ?

Les robots de Dogtooth sont conçus avec des bras personnalisés, équipés de caméras stéréoscopiques et de LED pour permettre la vision en 3D et la récolte à toute heure. Ils ont également un système d'inspection pour vérifier la qualité des baies après la récolte.

Quelle est la principale différence entre la façon dont les robots et les humains cueillent les fraises ?

Les robots ne saisissent pas la baie elle-même, ils laissent la baie sur la tige et la coupent au niveau du pied, ce qui évite la meurtrissure et la propagation de champignons ou d'autres parasites.

Comment les robots peuvent-ils influencer l'avenir de l'agriculture et de la production alimentaire ?

Les robots peuvent rendre la production alimentaire économique dans des endroits où elle n'était pas possible auparavant grâce à l'agriculture de précision. Ils peuvent également réduire le gaspillage alimentaire et réduire l'impact carbone en permettant la culture de légumes plus près de l'endroit où ils sont consommés.

Quelle est la capacité de données que chaque robot de Dogtooth est capable de collecter par jour ?

Chaque robot de Dogtooth est capable de collecter environ 40 gigaoctets de données par jour, ce qui permet de créer des modèles de prévision des rendements et d'améliorer la planification de la récolte.

Comment la transition vers l'automatisation robotisée pourrait-elle affecter le travail des humains ?

La transition vers l'automatisation robotisée pourrait créer des emplois plus souhaitables pour les humains en les libérant des tâches monotones et fastidieuses. Cependant, il y a également un risque que l'automatisation ne soit utilisée pour supprimer des emplois et priver les gens de possibilités de gagner leur vie.

Quels sont les défis que les concepteurs de robots doivent surmonter pour concevoir des robots capables de travailler dans des environnements non structurés ?

Les concepteurs de robots doivent développer des systèmes de vision par ordinateur et de l'intelligence artificielle capables de gérer les incertitudes et les variations des environnements non structurés, tout en étant robustes et en étant capables d'effectuer des tâches précises.

Quelle est la vision de l'avenir pour l'utilisation des robots dans les fermes et d'autres environnements ?

La vision de l'avenir inclut l'utilisation de robots pour effectuer des tâches spécifiques dans les fermes, ainsi que leur évolution pour travailler dans d'autres environnements dynamiques et non structurés tels que les magasins, les hôpitaux ou les maisons. Cela pourrait potentiellement transformer notre compréhension du travail physique.

Outlines

00:00

🤖 Introduction aux robots cueilleurs de fraises

Ce paragraphe présente un robot agricole révolutionnaire au Royaume-Uni, capable de cueillir des fruits délicats comme les fraises. Bien que l'automatisation soit courante dans l'agriculture, ce robot se distingue par sa capacité à manipuler avec précision et délicatesse des objets fragiles en trois dimensions. Cette technologie répond à un besoin croissant de main-d'œuvre pour la récolte des fraises, exacerbé par un déficit de cueilleurs qui a entraîné des pertes significatives. Les robots, en plus de préserver les fruits, permettent de repenser le travail physique et d'optimiser la production agricole face aux défis actuels.

05:01

🌿 Évolution et intégration des robots dans l'agriculture

Ce paragraphe explore les avancées technologiques et l'intégration des robots dans les fermes britanniques, notamment avec des systèmes de culture modernes facilitant la récolte tant pour les humains que pour les robots. Les robots, équipés de bras mécaniques et de vision par ordinateur, sont capables de cueillir les fraises avec précision en évitant de les abîmer. L'objectif de ces innovations n'est pas de remplacer les travailleurs humains mais de les compléter, en prenant en charge les tâches répétitives et en permettant aux humains de se concentrer sur des tâches plus complexes. Ces robots sont également conçus pour fonctionner efficacement dans des conditions météorologiques et géographiques difficiles, augmentant ainsi la flexibilité et la durabilité de l'agriculture moderne.

10:05

🌐 Implications de l'automatisation sur le marché du travail et la société

Ce paragraphe discute des implications à long terme de l'automatisation et de l'intelligence artificielle dans des environnements variés et imprévisibles tels que les fermes. L'adoption croissante de robots pourrait transformer de nombreux emplois physiques, présentant à la fois des opportunités et des risques pour le marché du travail. Alors que les robots peuvent améliorer l'efficacité et permettre la résolution de problèmes complexes, ils soulèvent également des questions sur la sécurité de l'emploi et l'impact social de leur déploiement. Le défi sera de gérer cette transition en valorisant les capacités uniques humaines et en veillant à ce que l'automatisation bénéficie à la société dans son ensemble.

Keywords

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Highlights

Building a robot with the capability to perform delicate tasks like picking soft fruit was once considered science fiction.

The U.K. has developed a robot that can pick strawberries, a task requiring dexterity and precision.

Existing farm automation includes GPS-guided tractors, but the new robot offers a level of delicacy not seen before.

The robot can navigate 3D space and approach a target from any angle, a significant advancement for precision farming.

The need for the robot arose due to a shortage of human labor for harvesting strawberries, leading to significant fruit waste and economic loss.

Robotic automation is seen as a solution to the increasing difficulty in recruiting enough fruit pickers.

The co-founder of Dogtooth, Duncan, has a background in machine learning and computer vision, bringing a unique perspective to farming technology.

The idea for the Dogtooth robot was inspired by the challenge of litter identification on Moroccan beaches, highlighting the adaptability of the technology.

Dogtooth's robots are built with custom-designed parts due to the lack of off-the-shelf technology suitable for the dynamic farm environment.

The robot arm is fully custom-designed and undergoes a rigorous commissioning and testing process to ensure reliability.

The robot operates with a level of flexibility and freedom that surpasses traditional industrial robots, with six degrees of freedom and 360-degree rotation at each joint.

The robot's inspection system uses cameras and LED lighting to inspect the fruit for defects, deciding whether it's suitable for retail or waste.

The robot's design allows for nighttime picking, a significant advantage over human labor.

Dogtooth's robots are designed to work alongside human workers, not replace them, focusing on performing dull and repetitive tasks.

While the current generation of robots is slower than humans, they can work for multiple shifts, making them just as effective over a full day.

The robots are designed to pick from the stem, reducing the risk of bruising and the spread of disease, ensuring fruit quality.

The robot's operation generates a significant amount of data, which is being used to develop yield prediction models for more efficient farming.

The technology developed for farming robots has broader implications for the future of automation in various sectors, including retail, healthcare, and domestic work.

The transition to robotic automation in farming is a gradual process, aiming to address labor and food shortages while potentially transforming the economics of food production.

The potential of robotics to change physical labor could lead to a significant shift in job markets, with both opportunities for new types of jobs and risks of displacement.

Transcripts

- This is a robot farmer.

- Until recently, building a robot with the same capability

has been almost science fiction.

- We came to the U.K.

to see a robot that can do something totally new-

it can pick soft fruit like strawberries.

Now, there's already a lot of automation on farms:

GPS-guided tractors, for example,

but nothing quite like this.

- Here we're trying to position

something very delicate and small.

We can move to anywhere in 3D space,

and we can approach that point from any angle.

- If you wanna keep the strawberries intact,

you need something smart and dextrous,

which is what these robots do.

Why do this?

It turns out, it's getting harder and harder

to find the human labor we need

to harvest all the strawberries made

in a place like this huge, fancy strawberry farm.

- The cost of fruit wasted last year in the U.K.,

purely because of our inability to recruit enough pickers,

was about 35 million pounds.

That number is forecast to double again this year.

And for me, this is a catastrophe,

and robotic automation can help enormously.

- And as these robots get smarter, and more dextrous,

they can do more than that.

They can actually help us rethink

everything we know about physical labor.

- It takes a lot of effort, intelligence,

and body-minded perseverance to make it all work.

- This is "Hard Reset,"

a series about rebuilding our world from scratch.

- Farming is probably humanity's oldest industry,

but, increasingly,

we're having to rethink all kinds of things.

- This is Duncan.

He is one of the co-founders of Dogtooth,

and his background is in farming.

- So my background is not in agriculture at all.

My background is in machine learning and computer vision.

- Wow. Well, the idea for Dogtooth

came to Duncan while he was on a farm.

- I was sitting on a beach in Morocco.

- Well, God-damn it.

- Morocco is an incredibly beautiful country,

but it is covered in litter.

And it just struck me, that knowing what I knew

about computer vision and machine learning,

actually the problem of identifying the litter

on the beach using cameras, was largely solved.

What we needed, was a low-cost robot

that could crawl their way around the beach,

and pick up all the pieces of litter.

That underlying thinking

took us in a slightly different direction.

- It took them to a farm.

Hey, third times the charm!

This is Ed, Duncan's co-founder,

and he's gonna show us how the robots get built.

- Welcome to Dogtooth.

This is our R&D workshop.

Our robots are made up of a few different technologies,

if you like, electronics, mechanical and software.

And they're all brought together with bits of firmware,

and this is where most of our integration work happens.

So here you'll see our clean room:

This is where we do all of our electronics integration work.

- In order to make the robot work

in such a dynamic environment like a farm,

the folks at Dogtooth

couldn't use a lot of off-the-shelf technology.

They practically had to make every part of this robot

from scratch.

- So this is our commissioning area.

So on the right here, we do arm commissioning.

- This robot arm:

how much of this is custom designed by you?

- All of it, unfortunately.

This is all of our stuff. Yeah.

These arms, here, are in different stages of commissioning.

The ones without any covers there

are on their initial test.

So once it's done its initial commissioning test,

it gets its covers put on,

and then it will run through a burn-in test,

and that takes about 16 hours.

- So this is like C-3PO in "Phantom Menace,"

and then this is from "A New Hope."

- There you go.

I've never seen "Star Wars."

- What?

- I know the reference, where it's from-

but I don't know "Star Wars," I'm afraid.

- Oh my gosh.

- Like the "Star Wars" movies,

robots are not new.

They've been around for decades,

and there's very little excuse for not having seen them.

But unlike C-3PO, robots in the real world

could only work in structured environments

with very tight tolerances.

In other words, nothing like a farm.

- Is this like driving with a PlayStation joystick?

- Exactly right. Yeah.

So my wasted teenage years weren't so wasted.

- See, mom?

So this is one of our fourth-generation robots.

The nice thing about our arms

is that they are super flexible.

It's got six degrees of freedom,

and at any given joint, the actual ability of the arms

rotate way more than 360 degrees.

In this pickerhead here, you'll see a pair of cameras,

and a bunch of LED's.

The LED's allow us to pick at night.

The cameras allow us to see the fruit in 3D.

And in the center here,

we have all our inspection system,

where, once we pick the berry,

we can suspend it into this chamber,

got cameras so we can view the berry all around,

nice consistent lighting,

pick up 17 different types of defect.

And so we know

whether to put it into the waste chute,

or into the punnet ready for retail.

- What do you guys call 'em?

- Punnets.

- Punnets?

- Yeah.

- You guys have crazy names for things. I love it.

- I think in U.S. they're clamshells. Right?

- That sounds right.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

- Or just the box your strawberries come in.

- Yeah, sure.

- Yeah. So here's our polytunnel.

We put this up about three years ago and we are actually,

it turns out, all right

at growing strawberries for a bunch of engineers.

We're going all right.

- So the first question I have as someone

from the United States, I've never seen a strawberry farm

at arm's height.

- Yeah.

- This right all the way already feels like a better design

just from a picking standpoint for humans.

- Absolutely is.

Here in the U.K., we tend to use quite

modern tabletop growing systems.

Approximately the right height to make it easy

for human workers to pick the fruit.

- Obvious, about the robot, is

it's gotta be super rugged.

We're here on a nice flat farm in the middle

of Cambridgeshire.

We also operate these on very steep hillsides

when it's raining cats and dogs and there's mud everywhere,

so we've got super rugged tracks.

Moving on up, you've got the two robot arms

which are doing all the clever bits.

- The arms of the robot

have these stereo cameras and they use computer vision

to navigate this complex environment,

find a stalk, and gently remove the fruit.

- So welcome to the glasshouse up here.

You'll see us starting to run robots.

We've got six running today, I believe.

What we're essentially doing is just looking for clean lines

on which to pick so that we're maximizing our chance

of getting our target berry.

Once we've got a clear vector to the stalk that

they're interested in, they'll pick along that vector

grab a stalk, grip and cut it.

And then they'll take it to the inspection chamber here.

You'll see a few flashes as it images it all around.

Then it will decide which punnet to put it in.

- Well, it's interesting 'cause on this one

it looks like it picked the right berry,

it just was attached to a couple of the wrong ones.

- You'll see here it just picked a little bit high,

and so it got another berry in with it.

- Right. - Pick that up

an inspection chamber,

and so it's put it into a punnet here for supervisor

to sort through it,

pick off the good berries and leave the bad berries behind.

- Just to be clear,

this robot won't mean the end of humans on farms,

so there will still be plenty

of dating profiles on farmersonly.com.

- The dream, I think, is that robots can perform some

of the dull tasks and allow us to focus

on the things that we as human beings are uniquely good at.

- So here at Dogtooth, the goal isn't

to replace human workers.

But the workforce for something

like strawberry picking, which is a seasonal job,

it's very difficult to make sure

that we are getting enough workers across the U.K.

So the way that we view it is that the robots we

can create will be very good at doing a very specific task.

For us, we look to incorporate our robots with human workers

so the humans can do the thinking that the robot can't.

- For now, humans will supervise teams

of these robots as they harvest berries.

And the robots, for now, are a bit slower

than the humans at picking.

- How long does it typically take for one to finish a row?

- Depends how many fruits you have in that row.

- Okay, fair enough.

- One of the things that we haven't prioritized yet

is making them go faster.

- With these robots, we've gone

for the slow but steady approach.

So kind of maximum speeds that we have around these robots

is about a quarter of the speed of an average person.

The next generation we're working on will be more

like half the speed, maybe even more like three quarters

of a speed of a person.

But because they can run for multiple shifts in the day,

they're able to pick off just much fruit as a person can

over a course of the day.

- Another interesting difference is

that these robots don't grab the berry itself-

they pick from the stem.

This has the benefit of making the robot a little bit

less complex, but mainly it avoids the problem of bruising,

and prevents the spread of fungus or other pests.

- So as someone who buys a lot

of strawberries, how do I know

whether or not it's been picked by a robot?

- On the end of each stalk,

and you can see this one which has just been picked here,

there's a little crimp mark, just below the top-

and that's where it's been held onto by the robot.

- Ironically, these robots were made to

supplement a dwindling migrant workforce,

but now, they themselves are a migrant workforce.

- So these are designed to work out of shipping containers.

We've currently got 16 of these

in their shipping container on their way to Tasmania.

- These robots spend part of the year

in Australia, but it's far more affordable

and environmentally friendly to ship robots

to Australia than humans.

And believe me, no one knows more

about how expensive it is to ship humans to Australia

than the English.

Robotics will make it profitable to grow crops

in more places, closer to where they're consumed,

and that will reduce the carbon impact

and make delicious fresh produce available to more people.

- Yeah, I was talking to some farmers yesterday

about whether this

robotics was a revolution or not

and I was saying, "It's not revolution, it's a transition."

If you look at it now, the difference

between a modern farm and a farm 150 years ago is huge.

Well, that didn't happen overnight.

We're just at the start of really applying this kind of idea

of intelligent robotics to real worlds, tangible problems,

and it's a really exciting journey we're all on.

- Very cool.

- So, picture a scenario where robots are involved

in harvesting all of our produce.

The economics of food production would be totally different.

Robots like this wouldn't just address labor shortages:

They'd address food shortages by allowing precision

agriculture in places where it just wasn't possible before.

I don't think most people realize how big of a problem

food waste is.

It's 40% in the U.K. We throw 40% away of fresh produce.

It's nuts, isn't it?

So each robot is also gonna be harvesting

about 40 gigabytes of data every day.

We're now working at building that together

with weather forecasting into a yield prediction model

where we can tell the future

and understand not just what's ready to pick today,

but what will be ready in two weeks time.

- And the intelligence that allows a robot

to work in an inconsistent environment like a farm

will eventually develop into the kind

of intelligence that enables them to work in other dynamic

inconsistent places like stores, hospitals, or homes.

In theory, there's almost no physical job

a robot couldn't do.

So, where does that leave humans?

- I think the hope is that automation will allow us to

create more desirable jobs for people.

But I think there is also a threat.

The danger I see is

that we use robotic automation to displace people,

to rob people of the opportunity to earn a livelihood.

- Intelligence applied to robots

has the potential to completely change everything

we know about physical labor.

If we do it wrong it could cause

the greatest labor disruption in human history.

But if we do it right, it will free

up an even greater source of adaptable intelligence

with the capacity to shape the world:

Us.

- I think the interesting observation is

that we're teaching robots to perform functions

that we as human beings find really easy.

As people, we are remarkably good

at performing what are actually incredibly complex tasks.

It should make us celebrate the beauty

and capability of humanity.

- I'm from America. What's a kilo?

- A kilo is half a pound. 2.2 pounds to a kilo.

- I only use metric system when I'm buying drugs.

Never bought a kilo of drugs-just to be clear.