Propero plants seeds at the optimal depth, applies fertilizers, and communicates with the rest of the swarm to insure optimal planting. Human intervention is not needed.
From the manufacturer, DorhoutRD
Prospero is the working prototype of an Autonomous Micro Planter (AMP) that uses a combination of swarm and game theory and is the first of four steps. It is meant to be deployed as a group or “swarm”. The other three steps involve autonomous robots that tend the crops, harvest them, and finally one robot that can plant, tend, and harvest–autonomously transitioning from one phase to another.
Bang goes more jobs, these humans are becoming a bit of a nuisance, they have to housed and fed or they become restive.
I don’t really see this as “the future of farming.” I’ve read that automated harvesting machines already in use have been less successful and efficient than predicted. Not to mention, the whole idea is based on taking a surreal view of the world to an extreme – that there’s a separation between people and nature and people dominate and shape nature through technology. We should be working WITH nature, not trying to automate it.
Mechanized planting and harvesting is already being done on a mass scale in the Central and Imperial valleys of California. I saw a video of a machine that shakes walnuts trees then another machine vacuums them up. In my view, it’s just a matter of time until such machines don’t require humans.
All of which accelerates the divide between the 1% and the rest. If there are no jobs, what will we do for money? Sure the tech class will thrive (until computers start designing and programming themselves). The rest of us will have to join the military… oh wait, that’s already our best employment scheme!
Not to mention, it’s just plain unsustainable…using all those fossil fuels to produce food (and the rest of our modern agricultural system), that is. I think what’s inevitable more than anything else is that this unsustainable system will come to an end – which is just one more reason to be more focused on ecological alternatives to it than how to expand its reach.