
With Farm Robotics, the Cows Decide When It’s Milking Time - irishjohnnie
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/nyregion/with-farm-robotics-the-cows-decide-when-its-milking-time.html
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DanielBMarkham
One of the first stories I did as a freelancer, back in the early 80s, was
about radio tracking collars being used on cows so that farmers could manage
the herd better.

So this is something in the robotics field that has been long-coming. If you'd
like to get an idea of what the future holds for people, take a look at cows,
a creature that has a lot of financial value. The idea is that the cow is
tagged to be uniquely identified, when the cow approaches a service center,
for say salt or food, the system reads the ID and delivers an appropriate form
of nourishment. When the cow is uncomfortable due to lack of milking, the
system milks the cow. Next up, I'm sure, will be automated detection of sick
cows along with some basic veterinary interdiction. Finally it would be very
easy to add a little bit of behavioral control to the system, either a mild
shock, a noise, or some other stimulus to gently train the animal over time. I
could even imagine a farm without fences, managed completely by robots and
conditioned cows. The cows are happy, the people are happy.

Pretty cool. Also a bit unnerving.

I don't think there needs to be a robot revolt. I think over a few centuries
they'll just slowly manage us into extinction, where we will most likely
belong.

~~~
arcadeparade
There's already a prototype robot that brings cows in to be milked
[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-24955943](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-24955943)

Once driverless cars are perfected, driverless tractors will be right there
with them too, they will be hugely popular.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I have it on good authority that driverless tractors are either already a
reality, or very close to it.

If you think about it, driverless tractors are a much easier problem than
driving a car.

~~~
arcadeparade
Yes, although in Ireland at least, it's common for farms to be split up and
require a lot of driving on public roads.

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elecengin
In college I worked on creating a robotic system for harvesting fruit
(specifically, oranges and apples):
[http://digitalcommons.olin.edu/scope_2009/2/](http://digitalcommons.olin.edu/scope_2009/2/)

Its amazing how difficult these problems are. This type of work relies on
things that humans are optimized to do - forage and produce food. We are
arguably the best robot for some of these tasks.

~~~
thenewbtg
Instead of arguably, I think "currently" works better. We are currently much
better robots at these tasks.

~~~
robotresearcher
We are currently much better than lime jello at these tasks, too. "Currently"
implies an expectation that things will change, which is a claim that needs
some kind of argument in support. Rhetoric alone doesn't advance the
discussion.

~~~
thenewbtg
We are in the midst of a massive trend towards automation and robotics. Every
year, we are seeing more tasks and more jobs successfully completed by robots,
and more and more robots completing "work" tasks more efficiently than humans.

I am not qualified to statistically prove the automation trend, but I believe
you are being obtuse in rejecting the premise that said trend exists at all.

~~~
robotresearcher
Qworg said:

"Its amazing how difficult these problems are. This type of work relies on
things that humans are optimized to do - forage and produce food. We are
arguably the best robot for some of these tasks."

It really is amazing how difficult some of these problems are. That was the
point of GP's post. By saying "currently" you wave away that point without
addressing it.

While robots are getting better, there are lots of things we take for granted
about human and animal competence and that we have made very slow progress on
replicating in robots.

It's much more fun to think and talk about those tricky bits than to simply
expect them to be solved.

I don't need statistical proof that there is an automation trend. I'd like an
argument about why the interesting hard parts are going to turn out to be
doable.

You might infer from my username that I am moderately optimistic.

~~~
Qworg
Actually, elecengin said that.

I'm far more optimistic on these problems, as I've seen many of them solved.

Lettuce picking (and other ground crops shortly) thinned and picked by
machine? Check.

Strawberry sorting for plant quality? Check.

Strawberry harvesting? Check.

Harvesting of tree crops? Check.

Orange grove navigation by tractors? Check.

Ex: [http://www.rec.ri.cmu.edu/usda/](http://www.rec.ri.cmu.edu/usda/)
[http://farmofthefuture.net/#/slideshow/autonomous-
tractors-t...](http://farmofthefuture.net/#/slideshow/autonomous-tractors-
take-field) [http://farmindustrynews.com/precision-guidance/new-
driverles...](http://farmindustrynews.com/precision-guidance/new-driverless-
tractor-grain-cart-systems-coming-year)
[http://www.agprofessional.com/news/JD-autonomous-tractors-
ar...](http://www.agprofessional.com/news/JD-autonomous-tractors-around-the-
corner-161209925.html) [https://www.asme.org/engineering-
topics/articles/robotics/sm...](https://www.asme.org/engineering-
topics/articles/robotics/smart-robots-for-picking-fruit)

~~~
robotresearcher
| Actually, elecengin said that.

Sorry for that mistake, and thanks for the links.

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arcadeparade
I think there's a lot of low hanging fruit for hackers to make improvements to
agriculture.

~~~
cpwright
I don't know if this is meant to be pithy or serious, but I think I disagree.
Agriculture is big business, farmers are smart people, and there is a history
of lots of mechanization and interesting technology being applied. The
productivity gains that we've already seen in the last hundred years (and
before) are tremendous.

I'm sure that there are areas to be improved upon, but I expect a lot of the
low hanging fruit has been picked, as it were.

I also tend to think of farmers as the original hackers, they often have
problems, and they cobble together a solution that might not be pretty, but
works.

~~~
arcadeparade
I'm being serious. I come from a farming family and see companies selling new
technology at huge prices, and other areas where nothing has been done.

Once I finished some other projects I'll looking into Arduino or something
similar to start hacking at some ideas I have.

By the way, you are indeed right that farmers have already done most of the
hacking themselves.

~~~
Qworg
I'm interested in your opinions on holes in the market - is it a cost thing?
Also, if you want to bounce ideas around, my email is in my profile.

------
frik
That's old news, such technology is available for several years. I have seen
such systems in the early 1990s in Europe.

The downside is that you need a lot of antibiotics for the cows. In the end,
people will eat the meat and drink the milk of such animals plus a dose of
antibiotics. More and more get an immunity.

So worse is better. (aka low tech agriculture with less animals in one farm
building)

~~~
m_coder
I agree that this is old news, however, the comment about the antibiotics is
not accurate. I visited an organic farmer last summer who was using a robotic
milker for his 40 or so dairy cows. He was very happy with the system.

~~~
frik
How is my text about the antibiotics not accurate?

I was writing about _big_ farming companies with many cows. To keep a lot of
animals healthy in a narrow space you have to inject each cow antibiotics _in
advance_.

Antibiotic in livestock is a real problem already - at least in the Europe.
The media and the doctors speak open about the issues, yet some big farming
companies don't care.

Everyone is fine if farmer inject antibiotics to ill cows. But giving all cows
antibiotics all the time (in advance), just in case, is the problem. People
will drink & eat it and if they get ill or are in hospital, the same
antibiotics has no _good_ effect anymore. And people already die because the
aftermath ( _hospital bug_ ).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_use_in_livestock#Con...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_use_in_livestock#Concerns_about_antibiotic_resistance)

~~~
bayesianhorse
Due to having heard this topic in detail at university, I think the link
between high antibiotic use and robotic milking is not the case.

One robot can only deal with a relatively little amount of cows in a day. I
remember something around a hundred. And industrial scale human-involved
systems are at a much bigger scale. If anything, these large-scale systems
would require more antibiotics.

Over time the antibiotic management should even improve through the
availability of per-quarter, per-cow data on the performance of the cow. Some
antibiosis is often necessary, and probably can't be avoided if you don't want
cows suffering unduly, or getting culled because without treatment the cow
won't be profitable anymore. But that is a whole different kind of animal...
err.... discussion

~~~
bayesianhorse
To qualify this a little, there is a way the robots can increase antibiotic
use, and that would be if the hygiene of the robot is worse than that of other
milking systems. But this does not seem to be the case. The robot would
probably serve less "customers" with more thorough cleaning in between...

~~~
frik
It has nothing todo with robots per se. Robots just make it a lot easier to
feed a lot more animals in a narrow space with little human interaction.

    
    
      In the United States, the use of antibiotics in livestock 
      is still prevalent. The FDA reports that 80 percent of 
      all antibiotics sold in 2009 were administered to 
      livestock animals, and that many of these antibiotics are 
      identical or closely related to drugs used for treating 
      illnesses in humans. Consequently, many of these drugs 
      are losing their effectiveness on humans, and the total 
      healthcare costs associated with drug-resistant bacterial 
      infections in the United States are between $16.6 billion 
      and $26 billion annually
    

\--
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_farming](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_farming)

The same goes for some countries in Europe. And as companies are importing
_goods_ from cheap farming companies such food can be found everywhere.

~~~
bayesianhorse
No, traditional milking systems allow more intensive cattle stables than
robotic systems. Which doesn't matter in Europe, because the space
requirements per cow are a lot higher than the minimum possible. If anything,
the robot allows for a less stressful milking and probably "happier" cows.

I can't see any connection between increased use of antibiotics and autonomous
milking....

------
bayesianhorse
I was actually most impressed by this little rotating robot. I actually had to
this by hand some years ago, shoveling the feed so that the cows can get at
it, and this rotating solution looks ingenious!

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andreis1
[http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/nyregion/with-farm-
robo...](http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/nyregion/with-farm-robotics-the-
cows-decide-when-its-milking-time.html)

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jobigoud
I'm sure the cows like it better. But do they also get to decide to not get
artificially inseminated each year and their calves taken away ?

~~~
bitJericho
We should at least provide cow therapy.

