Real_Revenue_4741 t1_jbuhm8y wrote on March 11, 2023 at 8:31 PM

Reply to comment by science-raven in [D] Development challenges of an autonomous gardening robot using object detection and mapping. by science-raven

In essence, "interacting with an object with an end effector" requires a lot of precision. It is more difficult than it seems to get it working on all types of weeds/plants. Weeding/digging requires a specific motion that may be difficult to accomplish without tactile feedback--it is not as simple as putting the tool at the right location. Irrigation may be easier because there is not much interaction with the environment required. It will be pretty simple to get a system that works with suboptimal performance, but this would be not be enough to automate gardening without human intervention.

science-raven OP t1_jbvlacq wrote on March 12, 2023 at 1:37 AM

There's two types of weeding, the most common is the huge quantities of seedlings that come up in new soil. That's dizzyingly easy for a human, and it's not too difficult for a robot. It's too repetitive for a human. The difficult types of weeds are those that have to be drilled, because humans don't have drills and mapping ability.

Drilling soil using an auger is actually a back and forth movement using just one vector on a single motor. The arm has at least 1 force sensor in the tool piece.