Robot gardeners

MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab researchers have installed an indoor tomato garden tended by hacked Roombas. The idea made me nostalgic for Ken Goldberg's pioneering Tele-garden that was online from 1995 to 2004. MIT News posted a slideshow of their robot garden:

The idea for tending to a garden without human hands came from work done by Nikolaus Correll, a postdoctoral assistant working in MIT Professor Daniela Rus’ Distributed Robotics Lab. Correll saw the possible applications of swarm robotics to an agricultural environment and thus the idea grew into a course in which students created robots capable of tending a small garden of tomatoes. Each robot is outfitted with a robotic arm and a watering pump, while the plants themselves are equipped with local soil sensing, networking and computation. This affords them the ability to communicate: plants can request water or nutrients and keep track of their conditions, including fruit produced; robots are able to minister to their charges, locate and pick a specific tomato, and even pollinate the plants.

MIT's robot garden

[#1 posted by Sorcerer Mickey, March 31, 2009 6:09 PM]

"Rejoice in the sun!"

[#2 posted by Senna1, March 31, 2009 6:18 PM]

look folks... it's Huey, Dewey, and Louie

[#3 posted by Fred H, March 31, 2009 6:19 PM]

"Take care of the trees, Huey."

[#4 posted by Fred H, March 31, 2009 6:19 PM]

Argghhh!You beat me to it Senna1.

[#5 posted by Falcon_Seven, March 31, 2009 6:21 PM]

I want one of these. I could have it pick my tomatoes and deliver them right to my kitchen. Now if it could weed and water and replant and compost and pick off the horn worms...

[#6 posted by wastrel, March 31, 2009 6:21 PM]

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/06/04/diy-silent-running-r.html

[#7 posted by Cicada, March 31, 2009 6:44 PM]

And the day moves closer when people no longer need people to provide for their wants and needs. Probably either paradise or genocide after that.

[#8 posted by muteboy, March 31, 2009 6:53 PM]

... or Bruce Dern will take a spade to you.

[#9 posted by crashsystems, March 31, 2009 6:57 PM]

"Roomba tomato garden, powered by Ubuntu Linux"

Perhaps a bit misleading, but certainly programmed with Ubuntu (and I think Roomba's already use Linux).

[#10 posted by Anonymous, March 31, 2009 7:01 PM]

Now we just need to hook up the robots to my g/f's copy of Harvest Moon and we're good to go!

[#11 posted by Takuan, March 31, 2009 7:16 PM]

swarm robotics, brilliant. How about gardener/bug picker bots that also do land mines?

[#12 posted by eustace, March 31, 2009 7:20 PM]

Some day soon robots will be pollinating more than just plants. Think of the gardens they can tend...

[#13 posted by Takuan, March 31, 2009 7:37 PM]

bedroom herds of lascivious little sexbots that will NOT leave you alone?

[#14 posted by Jack, March 31, 2009 8:06 PM]

So when will these be mass produced in China so American farmers can replace migrant workers?

@#12 POSTED BY EUSTACE

Some day soon robots will be pollinating more than just plants. Think of the gardens they can tend...

Demon Seed anyone?

[#15 posted by Dedalus, March 31, 2009 8:27 PM]

machines of loving grace - machines of loving grace - machines of loving grace ---- oh please - let it be - let it be NOW - woo hoo!!!!!!! (and silent running rocked)

[#16 posted by Ernunnos, March 31, 2009 9:40 PM]

Jobs Americans won't do!

[#17 posted by yokolocococoriko, March 31, 2009 10:14 PM]

About a year ago, I saw a robot that picks tomatoes from their trees (bush? plant?) using a combination of a claw and suction on the japanese tv program Pythagora switch

[#18 posted by Takuan, March 31, 2009 10:32 PM]

outsource the hard part?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGOiSyJHuh8

[#19 posted by batu b, March 31, 2009 10:55 PM]

@JACK: thank you for the Demon Seed reference. Awesome movie.
I thought part of the fun of having a garden was...working in it? Anyway, I still do love the idea, though. Maybe send these into the vacant lands of detroit and cleveland and let the robots tend the earth :)

[#20 posted by Anonymous, March 31, 2009 11:17 PM]

I just don't see the point. Tomato plants will grow all by themselves, without any robots or humans tending them. You don't even need to water them if you use a natural irrigation system.

[#21 posted by Godot, March 31, 2009 11:47 PM]

@TAKUAN: Great clip of remote-controlled fruit picking, they even mention outsourcing the operation to India...

Could be the inspiration for this upcoming film, Sleep Dealer:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/sleepdealer/

[#22 posted by Anonymous, April 1, 2009 12:08 AM]

Not a little bit influenced by scutters, are they...

[#23 posted by Takuan, April 1, 2009 12:34 AM]

scutters? why,I may burst into song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b35O8O_5ZM
;

[#24 posted by jdf, April 1, 2009 4:59 AM]

This is what I love about this site! Most of us thought of "Silent Running" right away!

[#25 posted by cinemajay, April 1, 2009 7:14 AM]

Hacked is right! The roobmas look like they're little more than skateboards with T-600 terminators atop them.

/not a robotics expert

[#26 posted by dculberson, April 1, 2009 7:43 AM]

It looks like they're the Create platform which is the same base as a Roomba but without the cleaning stuff or "brain" and plus some dev tools:

http://store.irobot.com/shop/index.jsp?categoryId=3311368

Reasonably priced for a research tool, too; $130 for the basic robot up to $300 for the deluxe kit.

[#27 posted by iEmilie, April 1, 2009 8:09 AM]

Does anyone know whether the manipulator was a commerical off-the-shelf technology as well? I know you can purchase an iCreate, but could someone purchase the manipulator arm somewhere? Or did MIT guys make that themselves?

[#28 posted by Sceadugenga, April 1, 2009 8:46 AM]

I would like to signal my co-membership in your subculture by dropping a reference to a movie that this reminded me of.

[#29 posted by Cupcake Faerie, April 1, 2009 9:35 AM]

Oh I loved "Silent Running" when I was a wee lad - my introduction to the melodious voice of Joan Baez. Really great special effects for the 1970s pre-Star Wars. Now I gotta rush and add 'Silent Running' to the latest Living Social Facebook- Movies-I-grew-up-with App, see ya!

[#30 posted by ill lich, April 1, 2009 11:28 AM]

Yeah. . . but the plants will still know it's not real humans.

[#31 posted by JArmstrong, April 1, 2009 11:44 AM]

Um, do these remind anyone of the caterpillar-hating gardening robots in "Runaway"?

I don't think they make an appearance in the trailer, but you can imagine: http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1803551001/

[#32 posted by Anonymous, April 1, 2009 7:12 PM]

The arms are from CrustCrawler Robotics. The Create robot has an Atmega processor and does not run Linux, but the plants do (OpenWRT).

Cheers,
Nikolaus

[#33 posted by TheyAreComing, April 2, 2009 4:40 PM]

Isn't gardening meant to be an enjoyable leisure time activity for humans? Is nothing sacred?