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Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

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Re: Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

#111

Post by stevespang »

dkarl wrote: post #90
swiley wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commodity drown with high powered laser for killing things based on image recognition sounds like sci-fi dystopia.

Yeah, I imagine massive overuse on "pest" species. Mosquito eradication will be a high priority for such technology, but there will be people who modify it to eradicate everything that flies or crawls. Everything smaller than a cat, if they could. I think lasers for killing large animals (including us) will be prohibitively expensive for a long time to come, fingers crossed.

Bill Gates was already involved in a startup to radar identify and kill mosquitos with lasers . . . guess it did not go well.

Re: Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

#113

Post by le-mark »

motohagiography wrote: post #56

Given where ML and CV are today, I'd bet on open source models trained on weeds within 3-5 years. This company can scale, but their unit price is going to plummet. Also, it sounds like they're using cameras, where it's concievable that other future sensors could be more efficient. An iteration of this with higher resolution cameras and small flying drones seems like an intuitive next step. This is a super interesting…

It doesn’t need to recognize every possible weed species, just “crop of interest / not crop of interest”. A much simpler but still valuable task.

Re: Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

#114

Post by stevespang »

maxerickson wrote: post #73
jfkgktjrnnr wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

150W of output power. Lasers are notoriously inefficient, CO2 ones are in the 5-20% range. So probably at least 1000W for the lasers, assuming 10% efficiency.

The modest engine powering it is 55 kW.

No wonder they call it CARBON robotics, using CO2 lasers and yet still pumping significant amount of combustion CO2 into the atmosphere . . .

Re: Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

#116

Post by fortran77 »

I don't get this:

    Big money machine: Myers expects the farming robot to pay for itself in two to three years, but it does come with a hefty price tag: Carbon Robotics' CEO Paul Mikesell told the Seattle Times it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars (he declined to provide an exact price).
If it pays for itself in, let's say, three years, then you'd think the manufacturer would be eager to finance it over a similar period of time.

Re: Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

#117

Post by JumpCrisscross »

sprainedankles wrote: post #108
joosters wrote: post #38

"It's harder to find people to do that work every single year" Translation: The wages we pay are crap and we're not going to pay them more.

I'd push back on that a little bit. I grew up on a farm that's still operating today, and it truly is difficult to find people to work those jobs. The farm pays just as well as any other job in my rural hometown, so from my experience, it seems to be more of an issue with the work itself. The hours are longer, and work is more sporadic/seasonal. When harvest rolls around, farmers need to get the crop out of the groun…

> pays just as well as any other job in my rural hometown, so from my experience, it seems to be more of an issue with the work itself. The hours are longer, and work is more sporadic/seasonal

If it pays as much as other jobs with shorter, less sporadic hours, it's underpaid.

Re: Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

#118

Post by anonuser123456 »

motohagiography wrote: post #56

Given where ML and CV are today, I'd bet on open source models trained on weeds within 3-5 years. This company can scale, but their unit price is going to plummet. Also, it sounds like they're using cameras, where it's concievable that other future sensors could be more efficient. An iteration of this with higher resolution cameras and small flying drones seems like an intuitive next step. This is a super interesting…

>An iteration of this with higher resolution cameras and small flying drones seems like an intuitive next step.

The gimbal alone on your flying drone will cost more than the entire river.

Re: Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

#119

Post by fortran77 »

jmacd wrote: post #85
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Farming equipment is typically fuel based. And this appears to be the case for this robot as well: it uses Diesel.

This is in no small part because of the massive subsidization of fuel for farming in most countries. Not only is the fuel for agriculture heavily discounted, but what you do pay can be written off against your revenues. Same with most fisheries. If governments want these sectors to go green, that is going to be a very big and painful band-aid to peel off.

> but what you do pay can be written off against your revenue

How is that different from any other business expense in any other industry.

Re: Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

#120

Post by gdubs »

Love seeing advances in this space. I have an 80 acre farm and I’m waiting for an autonomous slope mower.

Question about this tech is, does it really kill weeds, or just defoliate them? Like, is this laser strong enough to get down to the roots, which are often very deep with weeds?

If not, I’m wondering why lasers instead of something mechanical that can corkscrew down and tear up the entire root?

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