In terms of IOT devices, I think industrial IOT tech should really focus on farming tech as it could provide significant benefit in terms of both water efficiency and fertilizer use!
One of the cool things I found this week is Farmbot (https://farm.bot/). Its a gantry router mounted system on a french intensive gardening bed. It performs tasks like weeding, planting, surveying, and watering. Take a peek its kinda awesome!
The main issues is the need for the gantry system. The gantry system works great for this smaller application where rails and linear actuators can help the software find the location. But what about for a much larger field?
I can see Humatic’s tracking tech taking over there. Humatics (www.humatics.com) offers sub-inch tracking solutions without the use of GPS. This would be perfect to pair with a farming drone to survey fields, taking measurements and creating a significantly better model. Instead of a bulky tractor, you can use a swarm of drones. With significantly more sensors and precision, being able to track an individual plant, and plan for its specific need and growth schedule could be achieved!
Its the whole concept of swarm behaviors. Instead of relying on a single piece of equipment like this:
You distribute your needs across a lot of smaller equipment! Its just like neurons in the brain spreading the processing load!
With that, I’ll sign off for this week!