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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

#151

Post by riskable »

nemo44x wrote: post #146
piyh wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drones do not seem like a logical step for me. I'm not a laser expert, but seems like the energy storage needed to kill hundreds to thousands of something with light is heavier than flying would realistically allow. Wheels and tracks are what farming is built around, no need to literally reinvent the wheel here.

What about putting them on an electrified wire? String a grid of them over the fields for motion and for power. Power the grid with solar.

It stands to reason that if you're going to be running wires over the entire field you wouldn't need flying drones so much as you would need cameras on wheels (like they have at football stadiums).

If the camera sees the correct spectra for a known weed it can drop down and get a closer inspection then mark the spot or just burn the weeds with an attached laser.

I assume the crawler is necessary because--in order for the laser to work--the weeds need to be identified very early as they emerge from the ground. You might not be able to spot them at such an early stage from above without expensive optics.

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

#152

Post by gdubs »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #138
gdubs wrote: post #120

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?

Mechanical parts have more ways to break. All of those rocks in the field are just waiting to crunch things up. How long will weeds live if they continuously get their foiliage removed? How about when part of the root (closest to the surface) is damaged/burned as well? I really don't know, but I imagine that if such a robot went out into the field many or most days, there wouldn't be much of an issue. The weeds would…

Tractors break, sure, but steel implements have been doing a pretty good job of handling rocky soil for a very long time.

Fixing a blue steel corkscrew seems easier than debugging a laser.

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

#153

Post by titzer »

gdubs wrote: post #148
evanlivingston wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a reason you need to mow your slope?

We have an upland prairie which is a vanishing ecosystem which we are conserving. It’s fairly steep. We don’t have sheep but maybe someday we’ll get some. Until then, mowing is a way to keep it healthy and free of invasive plants.

Is mowing really any less work than pulling weeds by hand? Keep in mind that insects need habitat, too, and tall grasses are key for them. Mowing obliterates insects.

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

#154

Post by bluGill »

nemo44x wrote: post #146
piyh wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drones do not seem like a logical step for me. I'm not a laser expert, but seems like the energy storage needed to kill hundreds to thousands of something with light is heavier than flying would realistically allow. Wheels and tracks are what farming is built around, no need to literally reinvent the wheel here.

What about putting them on an electrified wire? String a grid of them over the fields for motion and for power. Power the grid with solar.

Wire is too expensive for that. You need thick wire to hold itself up without posts every few meters, which in turn means it is more expensive than the normal house wires. Not that it couldn't be done, but it is too expensive.

Now there is opportunity to have one long wire that the tractor reels in/out as it makes passes. This isn't a flying drone, but that isn't really needed for anything other than cool.

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

#155

Post by CoastalCoder »

capitainenemo wrote: post #128
le-mark wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A real world useful variant of Not Hotdog. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14636228

That was my first thought as well.

My second thought was, "Please nobody invent a drone that shoots lasers at 'not hotdog'".

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

#157

Post by SamBam »

pkdpic_y9k wrote: post #121
piyh wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drones do not seem like a logical step for me. I'm not a laser expert, but seems like the energy storage needed to kill hundreds to thousands of something with light is heavier than flying would realistically allow. Wheels and tracks are what farming is built around, no need to literally reinvent the wheel here.

Good point, but you havent thought of the *millions of tiny mirrors* they'd obviously be using :)

They'd probably just use rare-earth magnets.

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

#158

Post by evanlivingston »

gdubs wrote: post #148
evanlivingston wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a reason you need to mow your slope?

We have an upland prairie which is a vanishing ecosystem which we are conserving. It’s fairly steep. We don’t have sheep but maybe someday we’ll get some. Until then, mowing is a way to keep it healthy and free of invasive plants.

Nice! This is similar to the problem I face with my property, on a much smaller scale. Currently I'm hand weeding the invasive plants, but even for a 100' x 10' patch it's labor intensive.

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

#159

Post by joosters »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #89
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.

There is also a demographic inversion taking place in many parts of the world...

But is that a cause or an effect?
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