Dextrous Robotic Manipulation for Automated Potato Planting

泽西岛农民联盟是一个旨在促进农业发展并代表泽西岛农民的协会。泽西岛的农业每年生产3万至4万吨泽西皇家新土豆，每天出口多达1000吨。该行业在种植其主要产品泽西岛皇家新土豆方面面临相当大的技术挑战，因为缺乏劳动力和工资增加，但是，由于现场的物理环境条件和成本限制，过程的自动化是不平凡的，本项目旨在通过进行马铃薯自动化机器人操作的研究来应对挑战。在泽西农场种植该项目将探索从储藏到土壤的低成本快速处理种薯的技术。一些低成本的关节机器人手臂配备了抓取末端执行器将开发和测试合理的速度，精度和可靠性。我们亦会探讨移动平台的简约解决方案，让种植平台可以移动。平台的自主导航不会成为本项目的主要目标，因为它会显著增加部署成本，而是基于现有解决方案找到可行的解决方案，例如扩展现有拖拉机或低成本的移动的机器人平台。运动平台将集成到上述传感和操纵组件中。

The Jersey Farmers' Union is an association which was formed with the aim of the advancement of agriculture and to represent agriculturists in Jersey. The agriculture industry produces 30k-40k tonnes of Jersey Royal new potatoes annually in the Island of Jersey, and up to 1000 tonnes are exported daily out of the island. The industry faces a considerable technological challenge in the planting of their main product, Jersey Royal new potatoes, because of the lack of labourers and the increase of wages, but the automation of the processes is nontrivial due to the difficult physical environmental conditions on sites as well as the cost constraints.This project aims to tackle the challenges by carrying our the research of robotic manipulation for the automation of potato planting on Jersey Farms. Technologies for low-cost rapid handling of seed potatoes from the storage to soil will be explored in this project. Some low-cost articulated robotic arms equipped with grasping end-effectors will be developed and tested with the reasonable speed, accuracy, and reliability. We will also explore the minimalistic solutions for locomotion platform, such that the planting platform can be mobilised. The autonomous navigation of platform is not going to be the main target of this project as it would significantly extend the deployment cost, but to find a feasible solution based on existing solutions e.g. extension of existing tractors, or low-cost mobile robot platforms. The locomotion platform will be integrated to the sensing and manipulation component above.