We all have seen beautifully maintained gardens with flowers, plants, colored pots, lamps statues and so on. But I am sure no one might have seen a garden with robots moving around and also taking care of it. The adorable looking robots with lights on the top and too many limbs are known as Toro Bots, created by the Japanese, are basically garden lamps that are capable of moving around in your garden of their own. And they are surely going to turn heads and attention towards your garden.
The designers of the Toro Bots have mounted a typical Japanese style lamp on PhantomX quadrupeds, which allow the bot to crawl in the garden. Each bot has been programmed to give them an individual behavior. The bots are equipped with infrared rangefinders, which help them to sense any obstacle and prevent them from stepping on the plants or any collision with other robots, humans walking past them and any other thing that lay around in the garden. These bots can be easily controlled using iPad or smart phones that are linked to a central computer of an XBee network.
The infrared beacons fitted to the bots provide an easy tracking method for each bot using an IR camera, which can also keep an eye on the entire garden. And in the future the designers plan to integrate some sort of independent, centralized intelligence to manage the bots. Eventually the bot will be able to react to various variables and capable of performing complicated behavior of reworking itself, autonomously.
Designer Alvaro Cassinelli, wished to have a garden that is capable of taking due care of itself even in the absence of humans, sensitive enough to understand and re-explain the principles of harmony and equilibrium and reconstruct itself according to the various seasons.
Cassinelli places these bots in the garden for performing various practical works like walking lamps that walks behind you in the garden, at dark night. And the camera and other sensors will keep track of the plant health and overall development. They can even control the garden sprinkler system and spray pesticides as per the requirement. For the owners who are too possessive about their plants and flowers, the bot can even take the job of security guard, ringing the alarm on unwanted intruders.
