Farming (r)evolution

This article was originally published on IEC e-Tech. Click here to view the original post. Many advances in electric self‑driving car technology and robotics are transferring across to industrial and commercial vehicles, which account for some 60% of the value of the overall electric vehicle market. In agriculture, the widening use over the next decade of autonomous hybrid or fully electric tractors, robotic machinery and drones could increase farm efficiency and revolutionize how food is produced. Although some of the technology in farming robots is similar to that of autonomous vehicles, it differs in that operations such as planting seeds, picking vegetables or fruits and localized application of pesticides have individual sensing, manipulation and processing requirements.