No fancy hat. No spurred boots. The latest rendition of the iconic western cowboys is now…a robot.
Built by a team from the University of Sydney’s Australian Centre for Field Robotics, the four-wheeled remote-controlled robot, Rover has been tested in rounding up cattle. The cows have been quite accepting in allowing a robot to control them, even groups upwards of 150 cattle were calmly and efficiently herded. That’s probably because cows are stupid and don’t fear robots the way the should.
No matter the reason for its success, Rover has performed so well that future Rovers will be used to gather data at night, monitor pregnant cows, as well as to find holes in fences and problems in the soil.
Starting at $1 million, there’s just another job taken away by robots. Sorry cowboys.
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