Accessible Framework for Automation in Precision Agriculture Leveraging Boston Dynamics' SPOT

With the coming of the fourth agricultural revolution necessitating that farmers implement new technology to keep pace in an ever-expanding industry, there is a growing need for accessible means of automation that enable them to streamline farm management. Proposing a framework to meet this need, this research outlines the applications of Boston Dynamics' SPOT in precision agriculture. In evaluating the autonomous quadruped robot's versatility and capacity to collect geospatial data on farm-like terrains with a custom mount and LiDAR sensor, the system's efficiency and advantages over conventional alternatives are demonstrated. Furthermore, through implementing custom algorithms for simultaneous localization and mapping, temporal label interpolation, and PointPillars object detection, means of applying the data collected by the SPOT system to facilitate digital crop monitoring are established, highlighting the potential for such to revolutionize farm efficiency.