The team anticipate the design could ultimately enable the production of fully-autonomous miniature robots, capable of navigating unfamiliar terrain and self-righting themselves. Their ability to access small spaces could make them useful in precision agriculture and performing maintenance on large machines like turbines and jet engines.
Weighing less than 14 grams, the tiny robot was inspired by click beetles, which can jump without using their legs using a ‘snap-buckling instability’ through which an elastic object rapidly jumps from one state to another. When click beetles need to execute a jump, for instance to avoid a predator or to right themselves, they rapidly snap their bodies against the ground to power the leap. Their bodies store elastic energy in a flexible hinge between the head and abdomen. This is initially controlled using an internal latch that can keep the beetle’s body in a bent position but when triggered, the hinge is released and the beetle’s body unbends extremely quickly, resulting in a powerful jump.
The robot mimics the click beetle’s mechanism by having a deformable body containing a stainless-steel beam that is attached to a coiled, artificial muscle made of nylon fibres. When the muscle contracts, the beam buckles, which stores elastic energy. Ultimately, the beam buckles against a rigid rail, causing it to rapidly invert and hit the ground, releasing the stored energy which powers the jump.
To develop the initial prototype, researchers at the University of Illinois and Princeton University (U.S.) adopted a trial-and-error approach similar to natural selection. Using a 3D printer, they produced hundreds of different designs, taking the best-performing versions forward at each stage. Professor Dominic Vella and Dr Mingchao Liu from the University of Oxford’s Mathematical Institute then developed a mathematical model to describe the different physical components of the jump, which allowed the design to be optimized even further. Finally, the team added a light sensor and a microcontroller, so that the robot would jump in response to a light signal.
“This robot combines the best of natural design and man-made innovation,” noted Professor Vella, with the Mathematical Institute at University of Oxford. “Insects can move extremely quickly but can’t store large amounts of energy because they are limited by natural materials, while robots typically store a large amount of energy but release this relatively slowly. Because energy is stored in our robot in a stainless-steel beam, it can achieve a high energy density to power even higher jumps than click beetles; because our robots mimic the beetle’s jumping technique, their jump is faster than typical robots.” ●
The jumping mechanism of the miniature robots was inspired by click beetles.
The research has been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Prof Dominic Vella, University of Oxford’s Mathematical Institute
Cropin, an agritech pioneer that has built an industry cloud for agriculture, has secured USD$14M (₹113 crores) in funding from new investors Google and JSR Corporation, as well as existing investors ABC Impact and Chiratae Ventures.
The funds will aid in expanding Cropin Cloud, the company's intelligent agriculture cloud platform, to cater to the growing demand for digitization and predictive intelligence in the globalagriculture sector.
Cropin Cloud, launched in September 2022, helps various stakeholders in the agricultural ecosystem make informed decisions that increase farming efficiency, improve productivity, manage risk and environmental changes, and enhance sustainability through the use of digital technologies and predictive intelligence.
With the support of this funding round, Cropin will be able to further invest in its go-to-market efforts and expand the platform's capabilities, including developing next-generation predictive intelligence solutions through Cropin AI Labs. The goal of Cropin AI Labs is to bring predictive intelligence to every acre of the world’s cultivable land. In addition, Cropin plans to expand its business presence in new regions and industries, focusing on creating solutions that promote sustainable agriculture practices and address global food security challenges on a large scale.
The company stated its Cloud's intelligence platform has already provided predictive intelligence for over 200 million acres offarmland worldwide. ●
Nutrien Ag Solutions Inc., a subsidiary of Nutrien Ltd., and John Deere jointly announced the release of advanced digital connectivity between the John Deere Operations Center and Nutrien Ag Solutions’ Digital Hub.
This connectivity enables both companies to better serve growers by optimizing logistics and enabling variable rate agronomic recommendations to be seamlessly transferred to their equipment for execution.
In addition, the two companies announced a multi-year commitment to deepen the integration and jointly develop streamlined solutions so that growers can more easily benefit from precision ag technology.
According to a news release, this combination of optimized logistics and enablement of variable rate technology allows growers to realize improved agronomic outcomes. Growers control the access level to the data in their John Deere Operations Center account and can share access with Nutrien Ag Solutions’ Digital Hub where Nutrien crop consultants can create customized recommendations. Integration with Operations Center PRO’s logistics tools improves equipment dispatch efficiency and wireless work order transmission to the cab. This results in the right products, the right rate, at the right place, at the right time ongrower fields. ●
SwarmFarm Robotics has raised an AUD$12 million Series A (USD$8.3 million) to develop and grow the integrated autonomy category in agriculture through its SwarmBot platform and an operating system network, SwarmConnect, that enables developers to create an array of applications for users of the autonomous platform.
Founded in 2015 near Emerald, Queensland, Australia, SwarmFarm Robotics is pioneering the development and use of intelligent robotics in Australian agriculture through integrated autonomy. The company stated this new approach to autonomy on-farm provides more than another driverless system or a niche robotics solution; integrated autonomy puts the farmer's needs first and creates a technology ecosystem around them to help save time, resources and energy while optimizing for profitable and sustainable growth – laying the groundwork for the SwarmConnect product.
Today, SwarmFarm serves customers across Australia and works with farm equipment developers, including WEED-IT, Bilberry, Weedseeker, Hayes Spraying, Rasmussen Brothers Engineering, Goldacresand Croplands.
The team at SwarmFarm defines integrated autonomy as a new approach to autonomy on-farm that unlocks the full potential of driverless technology by providing specialty robotics solutions with an open platform to develop on. "While many companies are making driverless tractors and developing niche robotics solutions in agriculture today, we believe there is a third category of autonomy that combines the robot and the application within a development framework that will allow farmers to customize their equipment for their needs and allow developers to bring their innovations to life much more rapidly," said SwarmFarm CEO Andrew Bate. “It's the best of both worlds. For the farmer, we provide customized autonomy in a box. For the developer, we provide a streamlined path to the grower with a tight feedback loop.”
The company's Series A funding round was led by Emmertech, an agtech fund from Conexus Venture Capital based in Canada. The funding also sees new investment from Tribe Global Ventures and Access Capital. Also joining the round are SwarmFarm's existing investors, including Tenacious Ventures, and GrainInnovate, the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) venture capital fund managed by Artesian.
SwarmFarm announced last year that SwarmBots had successfully been deployed to farmers who covered over 1.3 million commercial acres, operated for 64,000 hours, and reduced pesticide inputs by an estimated 780 tons. ●
