Putting ‘high-tech farm hand’ to work in the field

By Guest on Tuesday, June 20, 2023

Husker research team builds an autonomous planter

  • Flex-Ro, which first entered fields in 2019 to measure crop traits, can be controlled remotely and operated autonomously. It has been designed to be modular and reconfigurable, with different modes of steering ability available on the fly.
    Flex-Ro, which first entered fields in 2019 to measure crop traits, can be controlled remotely and operated autonomously. It has been designed to be modular and reconfigurable, with different modes of steering ability available on the fly.

    On a calm April morning, Flex-Ro ambled through a corn plot at about two miles per hour. While researchers stood by to help clear obstacles from its path, the robot moved and planted on its own.Seeding the five-acre no-till field on Rogers Memorial Farm marked a significant milestone for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln research project, which aims to use agricultural robots for autonomous plant…