LAS VEGAS (AFP) – Driverless ploughs and autonomous tools to weed vegetable plots are the latest innovations ready to help farmers juggling labour shortages, climate change and environmental protection, while trying to feed a growing world population.

Venerable American farm equipment manufacturer John Deere and French agricultural robot start-up Naio debuted their latest innovations at the Consumer Electronics Show, which began on Wednesday in Las Vegas.

Touted as a means to feed the world, John Deere combined its popular 8R tractor, a plough, GPS and 360-degree cameras to create a machine a farmer can control from a smartphone.

Once the tractor is driven into the field, the farmer can simply swipe right to send it on its way, with no need to be in the cab.

Equipped with six pairs of cameras and artificial intelligence capabilities, the equipment constantly checks its position to the inch, and stops automatically as soon as it perceives an obstacle and sends a warning signal.

The autonomous plough will be available in North America this year, John Deere Chief Technology Officer Jahmy Hindman told AFP.

Other versions to seed or fertilise fields will come later, but combines to harvest crops are more complicated. The company has not yet specified the price for the equipment.

Technology is not new to the agriculture industry. For nearly 20 years, farmers have used GPS to aid steering, allowing them to plough straighter than a human.

“The customers are probably more ready for autonomy in agriculture than just about anywhere else because they’ve been exposed to really sophisticated and high levels of automation for a very long time,” Hindman said.

Other major farm equipment manufacturers are working on similar tractors.

American company New Holland presented a concept machine in 2016, while Japan’s Kubota in 2020 unveiled a prototype that even eliminates the cab.

Machines to automate farm tasks, including mechanical milking machines for dairy farms, generally improve productivity while freeing farmers from repetitive and physically demanding tasks.

Gaetan Severac and Aymeric Barthes launched Naio in 2011 after discussing the problems farms faced finding workers.

And they realised that robots, guided by centimetre-accurate GPS, could limit the use of chemicals.

At the Las Vegas tech show, they introduced the American market to Ted, a robot that can step over vines to weed around plants, and turn around on its own at the end of a row.

They also have a little “farm assistant” called Oz that can hoe, weed, or furrow, as well as a dedicated row crop weeding robot, Dino.

All are equipped with sensors, lasers, cameras or probes, allowing the robot to understand its environment, as well as collect data useful to the operator.

Farmers “no longer consider us as a gadget for the future”, Severac told AFP.

He said it’s likely the use of autonomous machines will first gain ground in specialised crops, with very high added value and requiring the most work, such as vegetables or vines, before moving to large cereal crops.

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, drones and even satellites all contribute to the move towards automating farm work, and the agricultural sector accounts for a quarter of the revenues of satellite imagery company Planet Labs.

“You can see the chlorophyll content in the sensors that we use that take pictures,” company co-founder Robbie Schingler told AFP. That allows a farmer to determine the health of a crop and possibly to add water or fertilisers.

LAS VEGAS (AFP) – A lifelike, child-size doll writhed and cried before slightly shocked onlookers snapping smartphone pictures on Wednesday at the CES tech show – where the line between cool and slightly disturbing robots can be thin.

“Oh! The eyes are very scary,” said Marcelo Humerez, an exhibitor from Peru who happened upon the Pedia-Roid, which is designed for medical training, as its eyes went white.

But just a few stands away, a humanoid named Ameca got a decidedly different reception, as it chatted with a curious crowd that marvelled at its ability to make a range of stunningly person-like gestures.

“Whoa, robot! I didn’t expect that when I turned the corner,” said Ricky Rivera, an exhibitor with Canada-based tech company Geotab. “But it looks amazing and it tracked me right away.”

Both reactions were, in some ways, exactly what the makers had been aiming for.

Morgan Roe from Britain-based Engineered Arts said the firm created software and technology to make Ameca person-like – though there are limits to how realistic it can be.

“We’ve designed Ameca to be as human-like as possible in movement,” he told AFP while standing next to the robot, whose greay face moved and blinked as he spoke.

“Humans are so complex, so making a robot exactly like a human is almost impossible,” he added. “But if we did that, then you wouldn’t be scared of it because you would just assume it was a human.”

Just before perfection, though, is a creation that is off in ways that reveal it isn’t a living being – it’s a concept called “the uncanny valley”.

“It doesn’t quite move like a human, it doesn’t quite express itself or emote or talk like a human. That’s the uncanny valley, that’s the scary bit,” said Roe.

Yet the slightly frightening aspect of the Pedia-Roid robot was done on purpose, said Yusuke Ishii from Japanese firm tmsuk, which was displaying the doll.

“We want to create a realistic scenario, so that’s the reason we added some of the scary noises, so it will behave like a child,” he said through a translator.

The firm’s brochure notes the robot can “realistically simulate the jittery movements of a child who is reluctant to receive treatment”.

At times, the roughly 43-inch (110-centimetre) tall robot moaned and talked, and its legs jerked – though it can also simulate convulsions or the vomiting reflex.

Ana Kloar, an exhibitor from Slovenia, watched the Pedia-Roid for a bit and found it pretty cool.

LAS VEGAS (AFP) – A ring shimmers on display at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), but this is no mere piece of jewelry – it’s packed with sensors capable of detecting body temperature, respiration and much more.

Startups at the annual gadget extravaganza in Las Vegas touted technology-enhanced accessories designed to look fetching on the outside while scrutinising what is happening on the inside of wearers.

“We want to democratize personal health,” said Amaury Kosman, founder of the French startup that created the Circular Ring.

While that goal was shared by an array of exhibitors, some experts worried a trend of ceaselessly tracking steps, time sitting, heart rate and more could bring risks of stress and addiction.

Circular Ring provides a wearer with a daily “energy score” based on the intensity of their activity, factoring in heart rate, body temperature, blood oxygen levels and other data, according to Kosman.

“At night it continues, we track the phases of sleep, how long it takes you to fall asleep, if you are aligned with your circadian rhythm, etc,” he said of the ring, which will cost less than EUR300 (USD340) when it hits the market later this year.

“And in the morning it vibrates to wake you up at the right time.”

A mobile application synced to the ring is designed to make personalised lifestyle recommendations for improving health based on data gathered, according to the founder.

Demand for body-tracking “wearables” is strong: CES organisers forecast that more than USD14 billion will be spent this year in a category that includes sports tech, health-monitoring devices, fitness activity trackers, connected exercise equipment and smartwatches.

That figure is more than double what was spent in the category in 2018.

Growth has been driven by smart watches such as those made by powerhouses Apple and Samsung, as well as Internet-linked sports gear – which boomed during the pandemic – and personal tracking devices.

Companies are also moving to fill a need for instruments that provide data that can be relied on as part of a pandemic-driven trend of remote health care.

Swiss Biospectal taps into smartphone cameras to measure blood pressure when a finger is placed over a lens.

French Quantiq is developing algorithms that calculate heart rate, respiratory rate and blood pressure from “selfies”.

Meanwhile, Japanese start-up Quantum Operation has designed a prototype bracelet that continuously measures the level of glucose in the blood. Diabetic patients would be spared needle jabs for frequent blood sugar tests.

Body-minding wearables can provide valuable health data, but some fear a “quantified self” trend is blurring the line between well-being and stressful obsession.

South Korean firm Olive Healthcare displayed a “Bello” infrared scanner that analyses stomach fat and suggests how to lose it, along with a “Fitto” device that assesses muscle mass and ways to increase it.

Society needs to determine whether these kinds of tools solve problems or “give rise to new dependencies”, contended German political scientist Nils-Eyk Zimmermann.

A danger is that the “digital self” generated by such technology does not match reality, reasoned Zimmermann, who blogs on the topic.

He also saw danger in “game” features, such as rewards and peer competition that put pressure on users that may not be healthy.