CMU’s Off-Road Robots Improve Efficiency and Human Safety at Industrial Sites and Farms

On industrial sites and large farms, critical work often happens in fields, hillsides and overgrown areas that are difficult or dangerous for people to access. Carnegie Mellon University researchers are developing off-road robots designed to navigate those environments and take on tasks that put human workers at risk. Soon, researchers will be able to expand their work at the Robotics Innovation Center(opens in new window) (RIC), a new CMU facility with a special testing area dedicated to off-road robots. 

Building robots that react to the ground beneath them

“We could send robots to locations that humans can’t get to or can’t work in safely,” said Aaron Johnson(opens in new window), a professor of mechanical engineering(opens in new window) at the College of Engineering(opens in new window). “But to do that, we need to have machines that are capable of navigating unexpected landscapes like vines or steep hills. The RIC will help us do that.”

Wheeled robots can get stuck in bushes or vines, or damage the environment they’re moving through. Legged robots don’t have that problem. So, Johnson and his research team used(opens in new window) a four-legged robot to design a reactive walking strategy that can better navigate obstacles. 

“The robot needs to be able to figure out which of these little, tiny plants or bushes or shrubs are big obstacles and which ones it has to just push through,” Johnson said. “And as we're pushing through, we don't really know what the forces will be, and we don't want to get stuck. But we also want to be able to get unstuck if we get hooked on something. There are a lot of big challenges around that.”

Another CMU researcher, civil and environmental engineering(opens in new window) professor and interim department head Greg Lowry(opens in new window), works with commercial partners to bring this area of robotics into the real world of testing soils impacted with chemicals of concern at large work sites(opens in new window). 

“An impacted industrial site can be big — maybe tens to hundreds of square kilometers,” Lowry said. “A fleet of robots could quickly collect hundreds of soil samples to build a map of where contaminants exist and keep humans out of harm's way.” 

Having more detailed information could allow companies to remediate impacted areas more precisely with fewer environmental disruptions. Lowry believes CMU’s new robotics testing facilities will help his team troubleshoot issues more quickly. 

“The facility will have natural, outdoor testing environments,” Lowry said. “We need rugged, rocky terrain to work in. It will be awesome to go there and test our robots in a space that’s exposed to the elements. It will help us solve unanticipated design issues.”

Robots that make farming more predictable

Monitoring crops on large-scale farms can be a time-consuming process. To address such challenges, CMU researchers created an agricultural robot platform(opens in new window) to autonomously insert nitrate sensors into corn stalks and monitor macronutrient levels in the crops. They also developed the use of precise robotics for automated pepper harvesting. 

Robotics Institute(opens in new window) (RI) research professor George Kantor(opens in new window), who leads these projects, said that these kinds of tools can add stability to farming, which relies on a changing work force and is subject to the dramatic tolls of climate change. 

“If you’re an apple grower and you’re operating a farm that’s been in your family for generations, you literally have millions of dollars of apples hanging on your trees at harvest time,” Kantor said. “Automation can be a reliable source of support in situations where you need to harvest quickly and in unpredictable weather.”

To develop robots for farmers, Kantor’s team spends a lot of time talking with producers about the agricultural bottlenecks they’re facing. One area where robotics could offer solutions is in crop adaptation.

“Breeders are continually crossing plants to find climate-resistant traits,” Kantor said. “But they’re slowed down by the step of having to create the plant, grow it, measure it and then take in all the data. But if we can use robots to do the measuring part, breeders could evaluate 1,000 plants in the time it used to take to evaluate 100. That’s important because the more varieties you try, the more likely you are to find something good. The robots can help with that.”

Kantor said his team’s work will also benefit from the new robotics testing site. They will be able to plant specific crops at the RIC for robots to interact with and navigate.  

“Right now we spend a lot of time building fake plants and setting them up on Flagstaff Hill. Which is fine, we do it because we have to, and our closest testing partner is three hours away,” Kantor said. “But we’re really excited to have a testing facility with an outdoor, agricultural testing space in our backyard. It will make us much more efficient when we do testing on real agricultural sites.”