Agricultural Rover

The objective of this project is to develop and evaluate an agricultural robot for use in small-scale production farms. This collaborative robot (cobot) will consist of mobile base (small self-driving vehicle) with a robotic arm, which will be able to work “shoulder-to-shoulder” with the farmer, providing her/him with a third hand that can be very useful to solve several one-of-a-kind problems encountered in small rural properties. The robot will be used to automate slow and repetitive tasks and transport products inside the rural property. To facilitate the inclusion of such a robot in the farms, the farming robot will be controlled by the farmer by gestures, voice, or other intuitive interface. Our hypothesis is that a mobile manipulator robot with capacity to move in different terrains can be very useful for small farms as long as the system is easy to operate and able to create a clear benefit for the farmer, not imposing to her/him the need for complicate trainings and hours of system setup. At the end of the project, we expect to show this robot helping a human user to perform several agricultural tasks, which include material transportation, plowing and pruning, inside WVU’s greenhouse.