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55 The Small Robot Company | Digest If needed, the nozzle could also be used to deliver weedkiller. The company accepts that the lithium batteries may not be able to support a full day of operation, but Dick will return to base when they are running low, allowing them to be replaced and operation to continue. Part of the data collection process is also looking at battery life and the trade-off between speed of travel over the soil and the energy available. Small Robot is now collaborating with the Manufacturing Technology Centre in Coventry, England, on initial work for precision planting. It is developing patents for two models of doing that. These allow Harry to sow on a per-plant basis and then cover up the soil, and regulate the amount of feed that goes into the ground, using less than 10 N of force for each seed. This vastly reduces soil disturbance. As mentioned, wheat has particularly small seeds that are irregularly shaped, so the design of the sowing system has to ensure that the seeds have the correct separation through it and are delivered one at a time. The seeds also have to be delivered at a rate of three or four per second from dispensers in 30 rows across the boom. The target speed is a total of 200 seeds per second to match the fastest planting systems, but that bumps up against the limits of mechanical systems handling the seeds at this speed, says Scott-Robinson. Treading lightly However, because the Jack chassis used for Dick and Harry is much lighter than a tractor, it doesn’t get bogged down in a wet field and can work for longer periods – even 24/7 – depending on the batteries. That allows the four seed-per-second rate to achieve the same productivity as a traditional tractor but without the environmental damage to the soil. Interestingly, the company is not looking at automating combine harvesters, mostly because they are much lighter than tractors and are only used when the soil is dry, so they cause a lot less damage than tractors operating in wet soil. The company has a prototype system called Rachel for collecting training data for the ML system on the test farms. Rachel has access to a piece of land on a farm that is between one and two hectares, and the team is visiting every two weeks to gather imagery and infrared data. In early 2019 the company will also be adding a new way of detecting soil health, but it is working with a partner on that and cannot say what it will entail. The Jack chassis is being built and tested with the range of different modules, and the company aims to have a limited service in place for September 2020, and a full service in 2021. The move to precision agriculture as a service is opening the way for new system architectures that can integrate machine learning both on-site and in the cloud. Using a small autonomous platform for monitoring and a larger modular system for delivering fertiliser and water, and for weeding and planting, gives a low-cost entry into the technology for farmers. Giving them the ability to call on specific equipment at exactly the right time leads to a number of optimisations that reduce the amount of chemicals used on the crops and therefore the land. The modular structure of the Jack chassis allows new detection and delivery technologies to be introduced as part of the ongoing service to farmers. Unmanned Systems Technology | October/November 2018 Different booms can be fitted to the Harry chassis for a range of functions in the field, from planting to weeding