Using robotics in farming is nothing new at Harper Adams, but they each tend to be designed to complete a specific task.
“Each one of the robots that you have now, has a solution, it’s basically an adhoc solution,” he said.
“So you have the problem, and you have a robot to solve that specific problem. And the robot cannot be used elsewhere, or to solve a different problem.”
Another benefit, he said, was that once perfected, programming could be replicated across 1,000 or more more robots.
Cheein said the future was not about replacing people in farming, but was instead about working alongside the technology.
The humanoid would be sharing the workspace or tasks with people, he said.
“The robot and ourselves in the same environment should co-exist in some sense and for that we need the robot to have social skills,” he explained.
“So we can deploy the humanoid to do the work that we can do.”