Thank you for the comment @Bert_Sonnenschein ! Just like any equipment left out or operating in the elements, regular maintenance will be required. I think on any scale, the tracks will need to be raised sufficiently to avoid getting muddy, maybe ~20cm?
And indeed, the larger the farm, the more tracks will be required. If they are made to be as cheap as possible, this may not be an issue financially. Think of all the steel water pipes temporarily laid out on fields for a season. As a further matter, the system may be more economical because there are no drivers and the system can operate 24/7.
I must admit though, I have no idea about the financial viability of FarmBot on a large scale. Everything I have to say is just speculation!
@Rory_Aronson Hi Rory, there are already farmbots around that have image recognition micro dose water and fertiliser and cut weed. They are pulled by tractors over large fields. So the track system is an innovation that allows further automatisation. I would raise them higher than 20cm, not only to avoid mud, but so high that they can fly over crops. As I said, lay-out a 2D system rather than a 1D line system. The nozzle can reach several lines by flying over the crops. That can save you kilometres of tracks on large farm.
The other trick for tracks might be be not to think of them as tracks. If they can be hollow and you can use them as storage and transport for the fertiliser, (organical) herbicides & pest repellers, they become more than just tracks. So you can save on other costs.
And can the tracks be round, in circles, like the pivot sprinklers? It needs servomotors to make each leg a different speed, but facilitates delivery of inputs like water and fertiliser to the system.
@Bert_Sonnenschein - all good ideas! My dad actually proposed a circular FarmBot design and posted some sketches on the project wiki which you could check out.
There are many possible variants of FarmBots, and we must find the best one for each application and scale!
That explains why you didn’t think of wheels. ;-), They have been invented in other parts of the world. No serious. It’s a tested and widely applied system in many parts of the world. The circular form and overhead solution has a lot of advantages. Like one central point for delivery of water and other inputs. Wheels are not a problem, the system has proven to work. You could mount more nozzles in one lane, to speed up delivery when needed.
I agree that different farm sizes might ask for different solutions.
I propose the support system, whether tracks or wheels should be designed to carry different specialised bots: planting, weeding, irrigating, fertilising and even harvesting. So a modular system.
Sound like an inefficient us of the limited farm land. Could make sense where the ground won’t be fertile at all without artificial watering and is less of a limited resource.
Your observation is correct. And when land is the ultimate limiting factor, maybe even right. But there are other factors that enter the equation of profitability of farm operations. We do produce mostly round bottles, while square bottles do exist, don’t we? To comfort you, the same overhead system exists in a linear form, so farmers have the choice.
We are talking of typical field sizes of 50 hectares that are served with only one ‘single’ 400m pipe and nozzles.
That is a rectangular field of 5000x100m. If you want to lay tracks and you have rows 1m apart, you need 505,000 m of tracks, right? If you lay them 10 meters apart you come down to 50,500 meters. If you lay them 100m apart … See where wheels that can transport the track can make a difference? When you are still gathering ideas, i think it is an alternative worth looking at and not to be discarded to soon.
No serious. It’s a tested and widely applied system in many parts of the world. The circular form and overhead solution has a lot of advantages. Like one central point for delivery of water and other inputs. Wheels are not a problem, the system has proven to work. You could mount more nozzles in one lane, to speed up delivery when needed.