[keenerd]

> But as a software guy with an interest in salt-of-the-earth hobbies, I'd love to play with one.

Like you said, high-tech outdoors is troublesome. If you want to get a head start on this sort of thing buy an outdoor robot chasis (or make one if you can hold a screwdriver, it'll save you a grand or two). Throw on a kinect, all the cameras you can fit and all the lidar you can afford.

First, teach it what rain is and how to quickly get back to the safety of the charging port. Second, make it navigate around the garden without destroying the plants. Finally, teach it what to look for (pests, damage, ripeness). Don't bother giving it manipulators, just have it log findings and generate reports. When you get home, it can tell you exactly which plants need attention.

[smoorman1024]

If this device was remotely managed and you had access to the sensors mentioned in the white paper then the tasks above may not be that hard for smaller plots of land.

Teaching it what rain is? How about a query to Yahoo Weather.

Teach it what ripeness is? Imagine this device taking pictures of each plant every day and emailing individual images to you. Start out by manually training on the corpus based on what you think is ripe or not ripe. From their you would have a good stepping stone to start machine learning based on color and size of the plant. Same goes for unidentified plants in the garden that may be weeds.

I think the idea of total automation and remote sensors could make managing a farm a one person job.

[nooneelse]

> ...just have it log findings and generate reports.

And send you a text if it thinks it sees a Hornworm larva on your tomatoes, so you can rush home.