My farm is in northern Japan and we get a lot of snow. I have had almost 0 income aside from 2 small high tunnels since December because everything is buried under snow.
I recently had an idea to build a robot that could see through the snow, and essentially sculpt out crops without damaging them as I usually do when I try to dig them out.
Actually, going down the rabbit hole of how to go about this is how I discovered Acorn. The platform is very useful and I think the overhead bed straddling design is a good way to go. I was originally considering a path driven robot working from the sides, but that would require two passes and more thought on balancing loads.
I have not been in active robot development in a very long time so my educational background in the topic is pretty outdated. Does anybody have any ideas about cameras I can use to see through the snow? Would IR work?