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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, vice chairman of robotics analysis at Toyota Analysis Institute (TRI), and Scott Kuindersma, director of robotics analysis at Boston Dynamics. They focus on their collaboration on humanoid robotics and the mixing of synthetic intelligence via giant habits fashions.
The researchers additionally discover the challenges and alternatives in creating general-purpose robots, the significance of human involvement in studying processes, and the function of knowledge in enhancing robotic capabilities. As well as, the dialogue touches on sensible purposes, 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 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 evening, Superior Farm Applied sciences hosted an apple harvester demo at its headquarters in Davis, Calif.
For the previous twenty years, apple growers have begun planting new orchards much like vineyards, utilizing a trellis planting technique. The bushes are planted nearer collectively, after which the entire branches are skilled right into a 2D trellis type, the place the bushes are solely a couple of 1 ft. broad 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 good for automation just like the Superior Farm robots. The Superior Farm check trellis makes use of 3D-printed apples on magnets connected to pretend 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 can open within the first half of 2025 with two websites, one in Salinas and the opposite within the Central Valley. It offers a maker area for constructing, with shared machine instruments plus safe storage onsite within the type of a storage container. Every website may even characteristic onsite cultivated fields for testing of the robots.
The corporate will plant no matter crop is vital to the startups onsite. It’s also creating 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 buddy of the present Daniel Theobald. He was on the expo along with his Twisted Fields farm, which can also 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 be taught extra in regards to the new enterprise. The corporate will probably be launching formally in early 2025.
Lastly, we caught up with Bluewhite‘s CEO Ben Alfi, to be taught extra a couple of new partnership with CNH tractors. Bluewhite has utterly 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 offered.
The result’s that Bluewhite ought to start to see full-scale deployments anyplace all over the world the place CNH tractors are being offered and supported.
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