Comment by TaylorAlexander | Hacker News Reader

Comment by TaylorAlexander | Hacker News Reader

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TaylorAlexander

> Is January 2023 not quite old?

It's been a while, I would like to post a new update. Other engineering work keeps taking priority, but I think I will start writing a new update later this week.

> You will run into energy issues very fast with this as soon as you do anything reasonable with it.

Our goal is specifically to research how to accomplish farming in our roughly 1kw work envelope. I personally believe this is achievable, it just takes a different approach to tools. We will build new custom tools for this. One thing to note is that since the vehicle is autonomous (there is no driver) it can move very slowly if this helps conserve energy. Tractors traditionally use a lot of power to save the driver's time, which is not a constraint for us.

> Like removing weeds, watering, fertilize, ...

I don't see why removing weeds would require more than 1kw. Watering is usually done with fixed pipes laid at the start of the season, rather than machines driving around transporting water. Fertilizing again doesn't require much energy. Our vehicle only draws 60-100 watts while driving on level ground. That leaves plenty of energy for distributing fertilizer (though we are specifically targeting regenerative organic, where fertilizer is not used).

> specifically targeting regenerative organic, where fertilizer is not used

That seems restrictive given the argument that liquified worm castings are organic: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-21/worm-healthy-benefits...

(and similarly that pig waste (urine+feces+time) from pig farms makes good starting soil .. although there are understandable objections to pig farms and to shit in dirt when growing some types of food).

Is "regenerative organic" that tightly insistant upon an immediate closed loop that not even an adjacent worm farm can be mixed in?

Oh certainly manure, compost, and worm castings etc are used. I was thinking those are not normally called "fertilizer", but would usually be referred to by their more specific name. When I said fertilizer is not used, I meant industrially derived chemical fertilizers.

So you need to find a Formular regarding speed, energy and weight to lift in correlation to the overall weight and tire size.

I'm curious when you will do those tests what the outcome is.

At least when I look at it it feels that the energy limit and tire size might be a problem but of course this depends highly on the size.of the field.

How much energy do you currently use when moving with things? Or while doing things?

My assumption when weeding is that you drag something heavy around or do it with laser.

Water I would not use dripping due to micro plastics and cost.

I would also fertilize to a certain degree. Even organic has to fertilize.

On level ground unloaded the vehicle draws about 60 watts moving at a fast walking pace. Well the old vehicle with larger tires did. Those large wheels added a lot of cost so we moved to some smaller wheels, which do seem to use more energy, maybe 100 watts on level ground.

For weeding, the robot is heavy enough that if you were using a drag tool you wouldn't need extra weight. We might use a robot arm for weeding, not sure. However one of the tricks in regenerative organic is to prepare your soil in such a way as to avoid the need for much weeding during the crop growth cycle.

When I say "fertilizer is not used" I mean industrially-derived chemical fertilizer is not used. We would still need to spread compost and manure, which can be heavy! That would be one of the more energy intensive tasks. Who knows, maybe we will find we need a battery for that task. This would be easy to add. I think many tasks will not require a battery.

It sounds like you're interested in the farming process. Here is a quick overview of regenerative organic farming systems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct3CL22RpTg

And this is a really nice detailed lecture series on a regenerative organic farming system: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCeA6DzL9P4uRadXW0_hj...

In the second link, they use a two wheeled walk behind tractor that is I think 18 horsepower. We will have 1 to 1.5 horsepower effectively, so we will have to re-think some of the tools, but you can see how moving slower with no driver could get us in the ballpark.

Remember, farming can be accomplished by a single human with basic hand tools, and our robot has more power available to it than a single human can output continuously. Of course, humans are a lot smarter which certainly helps, but you can begin to see my reasoning for why I believe our approach is reasonable.

Also watering is usually done with impact sprinklers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_sprinkler

Cheers!

TX will have a look.

I will buy a small farm this year (if I'm lucky) and I do believe your general approach is very interesting.

Let see how it continues.

Regarding sprinkler etc. I saw a bigger drown spraying stuff. If the autonomy is very reliable you could refill it regularly.

Sprinkler I'm really not convinced but we don't have a lot of sprinklers in field in Germany.

Might be a little bit waist full from a water perspective

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