Building of the autonomous Flex-Ro Robot

The Flex-Ro is a smaller sized tractor that has a variety of sensors to measure closer to ground level to take phenotyping measurements. The team’s goal this year is to “collect phenotype data through onboard sensors such as an RGB (red, green, blue) camera, a spectrometer to measure reflectance, temperature and humidity sensors, and ultrasonic sensors to measure height while comparing with measurements from the Spidercam.”

The Flex-Ro is intended for multiple purposes and is built to be modular. Industry partner Farmobile allows the team to keep track and playback Flex-Ro robot’s paths in the field. Control architecture on the Flex-Ro robot allows to easily integrate many off-the-shelf technology products. The team eventually wants to use the Flex-Ro for seeding cover crops by mounting a bulk seed hopper.

Fully autonomous

Associate professor Santosh Pitla said he envisions the machines could be fully autonomous while being supervised by a person. The Flex-Ro has obstacle sensors on it to prevent the robot from running into objects and would need to be trailered to a field, he said. The team believes the Flex-Ro could be a product which, in the future, could aid researchers with a few acres of plots to farmers with thousands of acres. Before this can happen, however, there are some hurdles to overcome. More real field testing needs to be done before the team can take the next step.