Developed for a robotics class at MIT, autonomous gardeners use equipment mounted on the base of a Roomba. Sensors in the soil alert the robot, which waters plants and can use an articulated arm to pick any fruit it sees.

Prospects: MIT staff have no immediate plans for commercialization, but they are continuing to create more autonomy in the bots. Future systems could compare earlier images of the same plants over time to detect diseases or parasites.





Carnegie Mellon University’s Field Robotics Center is testing an automated utility cart equipped with laser range- finders to find its way through a Pennsylvania apple orchard, towing sensors that track the progress of the crop.

Prospects: The project is at least three years from completion. Researchers say the key to the future of industrial farm robots is keeping costs down by adapting existing commercial vehicles instead of building new ones.





Vision Robotics Vineyard Products designed Snippy to prune as many as 400 acres of grapevines per season, at around half the cost of manual labor. Mounted cameras create a 3D model to tell the bot’s arms where to cut.

Prospects: The first prototype pruner has been in field tests since March, and a second one should be operational by this fall. A majority of the project’s funding comes from interested grape growers and vineyard owners, making Snippy an agbot pioneer.