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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

#161

Post by MayeulC »

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…

> But it's also incredibly fulfilling work, and it's a great example of a community-driven effort to accomplish something very important: providing food.

I'd love to take a break from my job once in a while to do some other, probably more manual work.

I think everyone used to go back to the countryside to help with harvest during summer, bur I feel overspecialized these days. How about incentivizing companies to take more part-time workers (as in, do not make it difficult to do so)? Together with minimal wages, it could be quite interesting. I also think having a broader skillset (more people helping) would help quite a bit: If I worked part-time at a bakery, I could probably help them with their computer/electronics troubles, for instance.

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

#162

Post by CoastalCoder »

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?

> Question about this tech is, does it really kill weeds, or just defoliate them?

Question from a non-farmer: if it were cost-effective to defoliate weeds once per day, would that be good enough? I.e., I would think that totally prevents the weeds from thriving.

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

#163

Post by _nalply »

riskable wrote: post #147
MayeulC wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you really need AI/CV if you have multispectral or full-spectrum imaging. Different species will have different absorption/emission at multiple wavelength. This makes it easy to identify crops, and seems to be commonly used for aerial imaging[1-3]. That kind of sensor is expensive though, and while you could probably do it for cheap with something like a DLP wheel (edit: or an array of different light e…

> This makes it easy to identify crops ...until they evolve to emit the same spectrum of light as the crops being harvested! Cuz you know that's going to happen.

Bacteria and viruses do that, but weeds first don't reproduce as fast and second humans can see them and find out something like treating crop seeds with fluorescent color.

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

#164

Post by Retric »

riskable wrote: post #147
MayeulC wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you really need AI/CV if you have multispectral or full-spectrum imaging. Different species will have different absorption/emission at multiple wavelength. This makes it easy to identify crops, and seems to be commonly used for aerial imaging[1-3]. That kind of sensor is expensive though, and while you could probably do it for cheap with something like a DLP wheel (edit: or an array of different light e…

> This makes it easy to identify crops ...until they evolve to emit the same spectrum of light as the crops being harvested! Cuz you know that's going to happen.

That’s a slow process, further you can always rotate between crops with different spectra.

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

#165

Post by SamBam »

Balgair wrote: post #131
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…

> Also, it sounds like they're using cameras, where it's concievable that other future sensors could be more efficient. Bit of a pedantic note: What other sensor could you use? I'm grasping at straws (pun not intended) to figure out any other modality that could work as well in a giant field of psuedo-randomly mixed plants with the wind blowing chemical signatures all about.

I think the question was just visible light cameras vs other wavelengths.

With visible light, all you have to go on is small differences in shades of green and shape of the leaves. With other spectra you'd have more cues.

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

#166

Post by metaobject »

Balgair wrote: post #131
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…

> Also, it sounds like they're using cameras, where it's concievable that other future sensors could be more efficient. Bit of a pedantic note: What other sensor could you use? I'm grasping at straws (pun not intended) to figure out any other modality that could work as well in a giant field of psuedo-randomly mixed plants with the wind blowing chemical signatures all about.

Perhaps he just meant IR sensors? Also, I wonder whether UV sensors would be helpful.

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

#167

Post by [deleted] »

hanniabu wrote: post #67
tw04 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also seems odd to have it be something that is self-powered and autonomous rather than just something you pull behind a tractor on the three point hitch That doesn't seem odd to me at all. The whole point of this thing is to let it run all day killing weeds while you do other stuff . The fact it only has a max of 5mph (and likely significantly slower when there are actual weeds to kill) means you would spend all day…

> The whole point of this thing is to let it run all day killing weeds while you do other stuff. There's a lot of automated tractors now

[deleted]

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

#168

Post by gdubs »

titzer wrote: post #153
gdubs wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Over time we’re establishing native fescues which don’t get super tall. As well as native wildflowers. All beneficial for the insects. Once established, mowing becomes less frequent. But we’re talking about 20 acre areas, so yea it’s a lot more realistic than weeding by hand.

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

#169

Post by marcus_holmes »

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…

My uncle was a farmer, and I had odd jobs on the farm. I remember the potato harvest as being cold, back-breaking and utterly boring hard work. I've also been a fruit picker, wasn't much better.

But. I survived my early 20's on these kinds of jobs while I sorted my shit out. I'm grateful for the experience and the ability to support myself while I did that.

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

#170

Post by OnlyOneCannolo »

klausjensen wrote: post #124
OnlyOneCannolo wrote: post #106

I don't get why all this ag tech has to be autonomous. Would it not also make sense as a trailer or header for a tractor?

Labor is expensive in many countries. :)

Farmers already drive sprayers to kill weeds, so it's not like this would add labor costs. Maybe it's more expensive than chemicals, so they needed some other way to be cost-competitive.
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