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During the Hands Free Hectare project, no human set foot on the field between planting and harvest--everything was done by robots. To make these decisions, robot scouts (including drones and ground robots) surveyed the field from time to time, sending back measurements and bringing back samples for humans to have a look at from the comfort of someplace warm and dry and clean. With fully autonomous farm vehicles, you can use a bunch of smaller ones much more effectively than a few larger ones, which is what the trend has been toward if you need a human sitting in the driver's seat. Robots are only going to get more affordable and efficient at this sort of thing, and our guess is that it won't be long before fully autonomous farming passes conventional farming methods in both overall output and sustainability.