Shropshire farm completes harvest with nothing but robots

Researchers in Shropshire, England have managed to sow and harvest a field of barley using nothing but robots. Many aspects of farming have now been automated, but rarely is the entire process -- planting, tending, monitoring and harvesting -- completed without someone stepping foot inside the field. The'Hands-Free Hectare' project was set up last October by a team from Harper Adams University. With £200,000 in government funding, they modified a tractor and combine harvester with cameras, lasers and GPS systems. Drones and a robot "scout," which could scoop up and carry soil samples, helped the group monitor the field from afar. Kit Franklin, the project's leader and an agricultural engineer, freely admits that it was "the most expensive hectare of barley ever."