Dual-Armed Robot Does Its Part In Helping Restore The Amazon
The Amazon is depleting fast, no thanks to deforestation efforts. Its vast landscape is a pillar of the Earth’s ecosystem, and aiding it in its recovery is a dual-armed robot gardener working to restore the lungs of the Earth.
YuMi is a collaborative bot, also known as a cobot, working alongside a nonprofit organization group called Junglekeepers that aims to protect 86 square miles of the Amazon that reside in Peru. It was designed by the Swedish ABB Robotics to help accelerate and ease the workload of the groups that are doing their part to replant the forest.
YuMi wields two functional arms made of lightweight magnesium alloy, and is housed in a plastic casing and soft padding. It can plant seeds by digging a hole in a soil container, placing them inside, and patting it down. Pretty standard gardening maneuvers which might take up the time of a human who could be doing something more complex. It also helps solve the issue of a lack of manpower willing to work and stay in such a remote location.
In total, it only takes the bot three-and-a-half minutes to plant an entire container’s worth of seeds which humans then transport to a nursery. ABB claims that in just one day, with the help of YuMi, two soccer fields can be planted.
That’s a remarkable achievement considering that the Earth has lost one-third of the Amazon or 335,906 square miles have been cleared since 1985, most of which were for agricultural reasons.
“ABB’s collaboration with Junglekeepers demonstrates how robotics and Cloud technology can play a central role in fighting deforestation as one of the major contributors to climate change”, said Sami Atiya, president of ABB Robotics and Discrete Automation. “Our pilot program with the world’s most remote robot is helping automate highly repetitive tasks, freeing up rangers to undertake more important work out in the rainforest and helping them to conserve the land they live on.”
[via New Atlas and Smart Industry, images via ABB Robotics]
