In the latest issue of Sensor Readings magazine, we feature the latest and most advanced technologies for what’s being called “precision agriculture”.
Farming is said to have started around 15,000 years ago and provided the foundation on which human civilizations were built.
As recently as 50 to 100 years ago, most modern nation-states were agrarian, generating the majority of their gross domestic product from the agricultural sector.
And even now that most advanced economies generate the largest portion of their GDP from sectors other than agriculture, farming is still a vital part of the economy.
In this issue of the magazine, we list 30 companies which are taking the lead in developing robotics and automation technologies that will significantly change the way farming is done.
Apart from autonomous vehicles, such as tractors and strawberry pickers, there are the internet of things networks which can monitor fields to see if any of it is being attacked by weeds or pests.
This way, treatment with pesticides can be minimized and production increased. It’s literally 24-hour monitoring of farms.
And because the systems can incorporate testing that would otherwise take time and cost money, and incorporate a range of software and other hardware, this entirely new way of farming is being called “precision agriculture”.
It’s an interesting topic which we will cover more often in the magazine.
Also in this issue, we include a light-hearted article about how humanoid companion robots could increasingly be made in the form of popular celebrities.
Recent news reports suggest that some humanoid robot companies – that is, sex doll makers – are using 3D scanning and additive manufacturing systems to produce forms that are almost exact copies of real humans.
Similar techniques are shown to be used to make the robots in science-fiction works such as the widely seen Westworld.
It’s probably only a matter of time that some of these robots are only sold as being a copy of a famous star.
Other articles this month include an overview of the Malaysian economy, the transformation of the car into a computer on wheels, and a look at the automation technologies behind the ongoing e-commerce boom.
