{"id":48270,"date":"2021-03-10T05:38:34","date_gmt":"2021-03-09T19:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=48270"},"modified":"2021-03-10T05:42:14","modified_gmt":"2021-03-09T19:12:14","slug":"sunitafe-digital-farmhand-mb1909","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/sunitafe-digital-farmhand-mb1909\/","title":{"rendered":"SuniTAFE Scores Digital Farmhand"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Digital<\/p>\n

It’s not clear if the Victorian Government’s grant covered the purchase of the solar model, but SuniTAFE has acquired an Australian designed and produced agricultural robot called The Digital Farmhand.<\/p>\n

SuniTAFE SMART Farm <\/a>is situated around 16 kilometres from the centre of Mildura<\/a>.\u00a0 The farm acts as a training and research facility implementing the latest innovations and best practices of digital farming.<\/p>\n

A new bit of kit the SMART Farm team will be tinkering with is the Digital Farmhand, which was developed by The University of Sydney\u2019s robotics development arm Agerris. Described as a “drone on wheels”, the device can carry out a number of tasks including spraying and weeding with “surgical precision” when fitted with the appropriate add-ons. Other capabilities include digital mapping, assessing plant health and providing yield estimations.<\/p>\n

The Digital Farmhand<\/a> has a battery life of 7-10 hours, but that can be extended to up to 15 hours with on-board solar panels. It can be remotely controlled or operated in autonomous mode, has the power to carry or tow up to 200kg and a speed of 6km\/h.<\/p>\n

At $300,000 for SuniTAFE’s acquisition, it wasn’t cheap, so here’s hoping the solar panels and other bits and bobs were thrown in with the deal.<\/p>\n

Here’s a tricked-out solar electric model in action – the weeding sequence is really interesting.<\/p>\n