An intelligent green thumb 种树机器人

闫慧

主题语境：科技

篇幅：313词

建议用时：7分钟

The worsening environmental conditions are becoming a threat to peoples livelihoodand economies. Critical issues include desertification and excessive carbon emission， thelatter leading to a rising sea level and the greenhouse effect. Restoring desert is an impor?tant method to help cope with these issues. When it comes to desert reclamation， plantingtrees by using robot clusters（組）is an innovative， effective practice.

Planting trees in the desert， however， faces several hurdles. First， the time frame isnarrow. In deserted areas， only the short span of spring is suitable for growing trees.Second， the efficiency of manual （体力的） planting is low. Take pit digging as an example.This seemingly simple step takes about 25 minutes for one person to complete. Third，even machine?aided planting requires manual supervision. Previously， there was no solu?tion to around?the?clock， fully unattended operation. Machines werent able to automati?cally plan the route or intelligently bypass obstacles.

Teachers and students from East China Normal University （ECNU） have developed adesert governance robot based on Huaweis Atlas 200 DK AI Developer Kit. The robot is ca?pable of visual analysis and can automatically determine the vegetation and obstacles to beavoided in the desert to complete operations such as pit digging， planting， and watering.This solution makes massive tree planting really unattended and around?the?clock. The so?lution plants trees faster and achieves a higher survival rate for the trees， helping reclaimdesert at greater efficiency.

Huawei Atlas 200 DK is an integrated device for AI developers. It supports 16 TOPSINT8 and provides hardware interfaces （接口） such as the USB port. It also includes agraphical software development environment， helping developers quickly develop AI appli?cations.

Zhang Xinyu， associate professor of ECNU and head of the Desert Governance RobotProject， said，“Large?scale tree planting with robots is a future trend. This solution can helpus make great progress in ecology restoration and cope more effectively with global warm?ing.”

ReadingCheck

1. What was one problem with tree?planting machines before？

A. They had difficulty digging pits.

B. They couldnt work continuously.

C. They involved too much manual labor.

D. They couldnt avoid obstacles automatically.

2. Which ability does ECNUs robot possess？

A. Attended operation.

B. Visual analysis.

C. Vegetation clearing.

D. Automatic mapping.

3. What does the last but one paragraph focus on？

A. The evaluation of Huawei Atlas 200 DK.

B. The advantages of Huawei Atlas 200 DK.

C. The market potential of Huaweis products.

D. The importance of software in AI technology.

4. How does Zhang Xinyu feel about the desert governance robot？

A. Doubtful.

B. Curious.

C. Confident.

D. Uninterested.

LanguageStudy

Ⅰ. Difficult sentence in the text

The robot is capable of visual analysis and can automatically determine the vegetationand obstacles to be avoided in the desert to complete operations such as pit digging，planting， and watering. 這种机器人具有视觉分析的能力，它能够自动识别并避开沙漠中的植被和障碍物，从而完成挖坑、种树、浇水等一系列动作。

【点石成金】本句中，第二个and 连接动词determine 的两个宾语，不定式to beavoided 是后置定语，to complete...watering是目的状语。

Ⅱ. Text?centered chunks

cope with 应对；处理

around the clock 日夜不停地

be capable of 有……的能力

at greater efficiency 高效地