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SwagBot Robotic AI Cattle-Herding From Down Under
Swagbot is a cattle-herding robot from Down Under. Researchers at the University of Sydney say this autonomous robot is on its way to becoming the world's first 'smart cow', able to make cattle farming more efficient and environmentally friendly.
Meet SwagBot, the AI-powered robot cattle herder preventing soil degradation | Cordelia Hsu, Reuters
— Owen Gregorian (@OwenGregorian) December 15, 2024
This is the SwagBot: an AI powered robot that can be used to herd cattle. When it was launched years ago, it was a simple all-terrain robot but it now has AI, sensors, and… pic.twitter.com/JOKELCENdC
Science fiction writer Simpson Stokes envisioned the Nibbler "smart cow" in his short story Down on the Farm, published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1937:
The hard, irregular shape of the self-adjusting Nibbler moved over the grassland like a gigantic mechanical cow, only it had caterpiller traction bands instead of legs. Its thirty-two jaws, working alternately in echelons of eight, opened . . shut . . . nipped . . . tore . . . rhythmically. Professor Obinson had well remembered the importance of achieving conditions as identical as possible with those produced by the teeth and jaw action of herbivorous animals before the fodder went into the Metabolisers.
(Mechanical Cow [Nibbler] from 'Down on the Farm' by Simpson Stokes)
If you're having trouble figuring out how the researchers get to the name "Swagbot", consider this famous Australian song that I learned in grade school:
Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a Coolibah tree
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boil
You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me.
The term "swagman" is an Australian word that refers to a migrant worker who carried a bundle of belongings, called a "swag", while traveling by foot from farm to farm.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 12/23/2024)
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