To see a video of the AgBot, click here.
The Robotics Research Laboratory, tucked away in a corner of Coates Hall, tends to go unnoticed by most University students. But out of this remote nook, Dr. S.S. Iyengar and two computer science graduate students hope to bring national recognition to the University through a new robot they have been working on for the past year and a half.Iyengar, computer science department chair, Bharat Narahari and Jong Hoon Kim are making great strides in the robotics community by building a robot with technology that hasn’t been used anywhere else, Iyengar said.The AgBot, powered by solar panels, includes features such as lawn fertilization, seed planting and security. But Narahari, one of the creators of the AgBot, said he hopes the AgBot will be able to take on many different duties in the future. “What we are imagining is, about five years down the line, suppose if you want to do a toilet cleaning job …  buy a module and fit it inside the AgBot so it will clean your toilet,” he said. “And if you are out on a vacation for a month, and you need to guard and protect your house, so you go to some robot store, buy a security module, and just place it in the AgBot, so you have a full feature intrusion detection robot.”Iyengar compared the robot to a cell phone. He said 10 years ago, a cell phone would just make calls, but today it has many different features. In the same way, he said, the AgBot is just a prototype that will be expanded to provide many functions as it is developed. The AgBot, an invention Iyengar said could be worth a lot of money, is safely secured by the University. He said he didn’t want to give the idea to a large company because he didn’t want them to take the machine apart after buying it and make it into something completely different.”I want LSU and the computer science department to make a niche here,” Iyengar said.Some of the other projects being worked on by the RRL include a “pipeline robot,” which can inspect pipes for cracks and leakage, and a “maze robot,” which uses sensors to detect obstacles.”All of it is built here,” he said. “And the very interesting thing is, [it was built] for probably a price of $2,000.”The AgBot is being prepared for the commercial market, Iyengar said.”We have proven the concept,” he said. “We have applied for patents, so now it is going to be ready for execution.”Iygenar  said he wants the robot to be available across the nation and be very cost-effective.”We want to do it at a very cheap price,” he said. “If somebody wants the base of the robot only for doing a few things, that’s very cheap.”Iyengar said he expects potential buyers to not only be homeowners but also golf clubs and baseball fields because the AgBot would cut back on lawn maintenance.—-Contact Ellen Zielinski at [email protected]