M***O
发帖数: 3718 | | M***O
发帖数: 3718 | 2 讲的是在佛罗里达州摘桔子。非常辛苦的工作。没有美国人愿意干。 | w*******t
发帖数: 2459 | 3 Robots to revolutionize farming, ease labor woes
Illegal有市场是因为成本低,一旦成本提高,对于农业来说,将来必染被机器取代.
Summary: From the text below: "If you can put a man on the moon," Sandoval
said, "you can figure out how to pick fruit with a machine."
Posted: Sunday, July 14, 2013 11:35 am | Updated: 1:03 pm, Sun Jul 14, 2013.
Associated Press | 0 comments
On a windy morning in California's Salinas Valley, a tractor pulled a
wheeled, refrigerator-sized contraption over rows of budding iceberg lettuce
plants. Engineers from Silicon Valley tinkered with the software on a
laptop to ensure the machine was eliminating the right leafy buds.
Hired by a Salinas-based agricultural produce company, the engineers were
testing the Lettuce Bot, a machine that can "thin" a field of lettuce in the
time it takes about 20 workers to do the job by hand.
The thinner is part of a new generation of machines that target the last
frontier of agricultural mechanization _ fruits and vegetables destined for
the fresh market, not processing, which have thus far resisted mechanization
because they're sensitive to bruising.
Researchers are now designing robots for these most delicate crops by
integrating advanced sensors, powerful computing, electronics, computer
vision, robotic hardware and algorithms, as well as networking and high
precision GPS localization technologies. Most ag robots won't be
commercially available for at least a few years.
In this region known as America's Salad Bowl, where for a century fruits and
vegetables have been planted, thinned and harvested by an army of migrant
workers, the machines could prove revolutionary.
Though they cost millions of dollars, farmers say, the robots are worth the
investment: They could provide relief from recent labor shortages, lessen
the unknowns of immigration reform, even reduce costs, increase quality and
yield a more consistent product.
"There aren't enough workers to take the available jobs, so the robots can
come and alleviate some of that problem," said Ron Yokota, a farming
operations manager at Tanimura & Antle, the fresh produce company that hired
the Lettuce Bot.
Many sectors in U.S. agriculture have relied on machines for decades and
even the harvesting of fruits and vegetables meant for processing has slowly
been mechanized. But nationwide, the vast majority of fresh-market fruit is
still harvested by hand.
Research into fresh produce mechanization was dormant for years because of
an over-abundance of workers and pressures from farmworker labor unions.
In recent years, as the labor supply has tightened and competition from
abroad has increased, growers have sought out machines to reduce labor costs
and supplement the nation's unstable agricultural workforce. The federal
government, venture capital companies and commodity boards have stepped up
with funding.
"We need to increase our efficiency, but nobody wants to work in the fields,
" said Stavros G. Vougioukas, professor of biological and agricultural
engineering at the University of California, Davis.
But farmworker advocates say mechanization would lead to workers losing jobs
, growers using more pesticides and the food supply becoming less safe.
"The fundamental question for consumers is who and, now, what do you want
picking your food; a machine or a human, who with the proper training and
support, can" ... take significant steps to ensure a safer, higher quality
product, said Erik Nicholson, national vice president of the United Farm
Workers of America.
On the Salinas Valley farm, entrepreneurs with Mountain View-based startup
Blue River Technology are trying to show that the Lettuce Bot would not only
replace two dozen workers, but also improve production.
"Using Lettuce Bot can produce more lettuce plants than doing it any other
way," said Jorge Heraud, the company's co-founder and CEO.
After a lettuce field is planted, growers typically hire a crew of
farmworkers who use hoes to remove excess plants to give space for others to
grow into full lettuce heads. The Lettuce Bot uses video cameras and visual
-recognition software to identify which lettuce plants to eliminate with a
squirt of concentrated fertilizer that kills the unwanted buds while
enriching the soil.
The company, which raised $3 million from a major Silicon Valley venture
capital firm for the Lettuce Bot, also plans to develop machines to automate
weeding _ and eventually harvesting _ using many of the same technologies.
Another company, San Diego-based Vision Robotics, is developing a similar
lettuce thinner as well as a pruner for wine grapes. The pruner uses robotic
arms and cameras to photograph and create a computerized model of the vines
, figure out the canes' orientation and the location of buds _ all to decide
which canes to cut down.
Fresh fruit harvesting remains the biggest challenge.
Machines have proved not only clumsy, but inadequate in selecting ripe
produce. In addition to blunders in deciphering color and feel, machines
have a hard time distinguishing produce from leaves and branches. And most
importantly, matching the dexterity and speed of farmworkers has proved
elusive.
"The hand-eye coordination workers have is really amazing, and they can pick
incredibly fast. To replicate that in a machine, at the speed humans do and
in an economical manner, we're still pretty far away," said Daniel L.
Schmoldt at the U.S. Agriculture Department's National Institute of Food and
Agriculture.
In southern California, engineers with the Spanish company Agrobot are
taking on the challenge by working with local growers to test a strawberry
harvester.
The machine is equipped with 24 arms whose movement is directed through an
optical sensor; it allows the robot to make a choice based on fruit color,
quality and size. The berries are plucked and placed on a conveyor belt,
where the fruit is packed by a worker.
Still, the harvester collects only strawberries that are hanging on the
sides of the bed, hence California's strawberry fields would have to be
reshaped to accommodate the machine, including farming in single rows,
raising the beds and even growing varieties with fewer clusters.
Experts say it will take at least 10 years for harvesters to be available
commercially for most fresh-market fruit _ not a moment too soon for farmers
worried about the availability of workers, said Lupe Sandoval, managing
director of the California Farm Labor Contractor Association.
"If you can put a man on the moon," Sandoval said, "you can figure out how
to pick fruit with a machine."
http://www.cachevalleydaily.com/news/national/article_a68cda3e- | M***O
发帖数: 3718 | 4 I don't think picking oranges by machine is easier than going to the moon. | s*****d
发帖数: 267 | 5 你一定没见过自动摘棉花和拔胡萝卜的机器，见到自动摘葡萄的机器你得OMG了
【在 M***O 的大作中提到】
: I don't think picking oranges by machine is easier than going to the moon.
| r*******n
发帖数: 3020 | 6 等这些非法的绿了，还干这工作吗
【在 M***O 的大作中提到】
: 讲的是在佛罗里达州摘桔子。非常辛苦的工作。没有美国人愿意干。
| M***O
发帖数: 3718 | 7 不干靠什么吃饭？
【在 r*******n 的大作中提到】
: 等这些非法的绿了，还干这工作吗
| K******r
发帖数: 4052 | 8 下一波非法干啊
【在 r*******n 的大作中提到】
: 等这些非法的绿了，还干这工作吗
| M***O
发帖数: 3718 | 9 那这一波新合法的靠什么吃饭？
【在 K******r 的大作中提到】
: 下一波非法干啊
| l**p
发帖数: 6080 | 10 这还用问，自然福利
【在 M***O 的大作中提到】
: 那这一波新合法的靠什么吃饭？
| M***O
发帖数: 3718 | 11 怎么个自然福利？移民法不是对拿福利有限制吗？
【在 l**p 的大作中提到】
: 这还用问，自然福利
| c***z
发帖数: 887 | 12 有不见得会执行,O8的非法的AUNT和UNCLE不是都受到遣返通知,还照样住在PUBLIC
HOUSING吗. 即使执行,还可以想办法钻空子.政府怎么管的过来.
【在 M***O 的大作中提到】
: 怎么个自然福利？移民法不是对拿福利有限制吗？
| M***O
发帖数: 3718 | 13 钻空子的人什么时候都有。不能以偏概全。
【在 c***z 的大作中提到】
: 有不见得会执行,O8的非法的AUNT和UNCLE不是都受到遣返通知,还照样住在PUBLIC
: HOUSING吗. 即使执行,还可以想办法钻空子.政府怎么管的过来.
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