181–190 of 483 posts
It's all fun and games until the selection pressure evolves weeds that say "human" on their leaves to fool the AI.
I know this is supposed to be a joke, but come on. In what possible world would this ever happen? They're not dragging this over people lying down in a field and I doubt the technology is even made to not target humans because they're never in target range.
And eventually the humans will too.
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.
But some weeds, like invasive blackberries here in the Pacific Northwest, are extremely resilient and will shrug off defoliation.
I want to see details on power source and energy usage. That's where I'm a bit skeptical. To do the 20 acres they're talking about you'd need one hell of a huge battery, assuming it's electric. Even just to move the thing. Then add power draw for the laser on as well. 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 hitc…
The energy usage should be minimal - it doesn't take much power to burn a leaf. If you pull it behind a tractor, you need to hire someone to drive the tractor. This defeats the purpose of an autonomous weeding system.
This is certainly true for dry plants. If they're weeds, they're actively growing, so they are trapping a lot of moisture that could make it hard to burn. If the weeds are a problem, then they're going to be growing. Many weeds, too, will continue to grow, even if their leaves are damaged or removed.
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…
> you have multispectral or full-spectrum imaging ...that's exactly what CV needs to handle.
If they can make it a little bit more robust, there would be a huge market for removing toxic plants. I was just quoted over $1000 to remove poison ivy from a 500 sq ft. wooded area of property. My satisfaction was not guaranteed.
This most likely wouldn't be safe for poison ivy removal. Burning poison ivy creates a toxic cloud. As much as poison ivy isn't fun, poison ivy in your throat and lungs is even less fun.
Having battled weeds in a previous lifetime I can tell you those weeds are far from dead.
I want to see details on power source and energy usage. That's where I'm a bit skeptical. To do the 20 acres they're talking about you'd need one hell of a huge battery, assuming it's electric. Even just to move the thing. Then add power draw for the laser on as well. 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 hitc…
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.
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.
https://www.forestry-suppliers.com/product_pages/products.ph...
I use it for everything, from digging up plants, to leveraging boulders, to actually maintaining trails.
We could probably use high-tech robots to identify the different plans and harvest one without damaging the other. Something that is currently not possible in large scale farming and thus wont allow us to plant different things in the same space.