How dairy robots are changing work for cows and farmers

https://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

It makes me wonder what the author isn't mentioning. Do they have bugs that take the whole farm down? If the internet goes out, do the machines start acting weird? I'm not a luddite, I love the idea of a robot farm, I just want a complete story.

There so far haven't been serious software bugs, only minor/annoying ones. Hardware, on the other hand... Things break, and then it's number one priority to fix it, even if it's 2am Sunday morning. Our poor dealer has received a number of calls in the middle of the night and/or on a weekend.

We're fairly handy though, so a decent number of problems are things we can either fix or invent a workaround for.

Most recent example: the hydraulic pump motor bearing spun in the aluminum housing, and developed so much play that the rotor actually jammed against the stator/armature. Turns out JB Kwik (faster JB Weld, epoxy) actually works to hold a bearing in place. The rotor shaft naturally tended to stay in the center (the other bearing was fine), so the epoxy cured with the bearing in the right spot, and then we were good to go.

The replacement motor has arrived but has not yet been installed.

No downsight at all even though it has big flaws. The constant alarm, sometimes when sleeping because something got stuck, the maintenance price, cost of certified technicians.

Nothing about the price and ROI.

Nothing about the farmers who bought them and their experience years later, a considerable part would not buy it again and instead just come back to build a parlor and milking 2 times a day.

As you pointed, nothing about other brand.

All sunshine and rainbows..

If it's journalism, it's bad one.

I was at a robotics conference in Boulder last spring, where some folks from Lely presented a paper on their robotic code of conduct. I hadn't heard of robots for cows before, and thought it was fascinating. I happened to be in Rotterdam last fall for another conference, which was close enough to the Lely headquarters for a visit.

Lely is somewhat unique in that they're a robotics company rather than an agricultural machinery company that also makes some robots. There are a few other companies that make robotic systems like these, but Lely is the largest by a significant margin. Farms will often choose what brand of robot to buy based on what service center is closest to them, in case something goes wrong. I believe that Lely promises that they'll have someone on-site to fix (or, start fixing) a broken robot within about 2 hours.

The majority of farms who switch to these robots keep them- an expert that we talked to said that it's not common to go back, and only a small percentage do.

What equipment from the major agricultural manufacturers would you consider to be not robots these days? Even a simple tool like a field cultivator now employs robotics for things like keeping it at a precise depth, never mind the extensive robotics involved in more complex equipment.

There are some smaller companies still producing agricultural equipment that is not recognizable as a robot, but I'd consider that to be the exception rather than the norm.

Perhaps a more pedantic take is that the cultivator is simply attachment for the actual robot, which is the tractor. A cultivator on its own is useless. In that vein, there is seemingly a difference. Each product Lely sells is the full solution. Whereas John Deere gives you a menu and you have to select which "toppings" you want on your robot.

But then that gives nod to Lely products being closer to automation than robotics again. Beyond choosing a product at a high level, you don't have to get into the nitty gritty details because they will always operate in a comparatively strict and consistent environment.