피지컬 AI로 농사까지... 이제 농사도 로봇이 짓는 시대 / KNN

#KNNNews #AI #Farming #Robot #Agriculture #Rural #Cultivation [Anchor] It has long been true that agriculture is labor-intensive and physically demanding. However, now that robots incorporating AI—known as "Physical AI"—are helping with the work, the difficulties faced by rural communities suffering from severe population aging are also diminishing. Reporter Lee Min-jae visited the site. [Reporter] A single robot navigates the hot and humid environment inside a greenhouse for cultivating cherry tomatoes. It sprays pesticides while moving alone across an area of ​​4,000 square meters, roughly the size of an elementary school playground. A single robot completes pest control work in just one and a half hours, a task that would take two people three hours to finish. {Park Sang-su / Tomato Farmer / "I manage a farm of about 1,200 pyeong. We used to have two people holding the hoses to handle the work, but now, a robot alone can sufficiently complete pest control in just 1 hour and 20 to 30 minutes."} "When working inside a vinyl greenhouse wearing protective suits and gas masks, your whole body gets drenched in sweat in an instant. However, by utilizing pest control robots like this, there is no need to worry about being exposed to harmful chemicals." Since drone pest control is difficult in greenhouses, the work was previously done manually by humans, but now robots are taking over. {Kang Jong-soon / Director of Changwon Agricultural Technology Center / "(Rural areas) are aging, so it is actually very difficult. In that respect, this kind of smart agriculture can be an alternative, and robots have taken over tasks that involve exposure to high temperatures."} An AI camera on the conveyor belt checks the crops, and a robotic arm lines them up by size. Bruised and soft persimmons are sorted separately. Sweet persimmons have thin skins and are prone to bruising, so they have traditionally been sorted by hand-feeding each one. However, the era has arrived where robots handle this sorting process as well. "Sorting persimmons is a highly labor-intensive and specialized task. The robotic sorter you see here is not yet commercially available, so the working speed is somewhat slow, but it is highly efficient in that it can operate 24 hours a day." From stacking boxes of persimmons to every step of the process, not a single human hand is involved. {Kim Tae-yeop / Agricultural Researcher, Sweet Persimmon Research Institute, Gyeongnam Agricultural Research & Extension Services / "With the introduction of robotic sorters, we can reduce the manpower required for sorting and packaging, and we expect to maintain quality consistency because the sorting is done by machines rather than humans."} Physical AI, which follows human know-how to observe, judge, and act on its own, is now bringing winds of change to farms—not far from our daily lives—that are suffering from an aging population and labor shortages. This is Lee Min-jae from KNN. Video Coverage: Jeong Chang-wook Tip-off KakaoTalk: Add 'KNN' as a friend Email: [email protected] [email protected] Website: www.knn.co.kr Search: KNN