Robot farm workers take to the fields

To feed a growing population, we will need to double food production by 2050 – yet fewer people want to work the land. One solution could be robotic labour. Here are six systems, real and imagined, which could help farmers of the future.

Hortibot

Created by Rasmus Jørgensen and a team at Aarhus University in Denmark in 2007, Hortibot is a prototype agricultural robot that uses autonomous navigation, cameras and a variety of tools to carry out repetitive tasks in the fields.