Robotics in agriculture has the potential to save farmers time and money. A new robotic harvester designed by York University researchers uses solar and wind energy to improve production efficiency and operational safety for farmers.
Their latest research is based on a hybrid harvester, a robotic structure with a hybrid harvester that uses solar and wind energy. The machine is designed in such a way that it can lie flat under stormy conditions, then return to a working configuration after the storm.
“This robot could harvest solar/wind clean energy and is storm-safe through lie-flat posture, and it can be used as a radar antenna as well,” said Professor Dan Zhang at York University’s Lassonde School of Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering. “This improves the efficiency of energy collection and operational safety of the green industry.”
This research was funded by the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). The results were presented at a conference on materials science and engineering, then published in 2018 as part of the IOP Conference Series, under the title “Hybrid Harvester 3-RPS Robotic Parallel Manipulator.”
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