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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

#241

Post by foofoo55 »

tw04 wrote: post #191
hanniabu wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

I guess I don't follow what the advantage would be. Putting hours and wear/tear on a $250k tractor that you likely have other uses for in order to cut what? $10k off the price of this for the cummins motor and hydraulics? It would need power generation of some sort, so you'd be doing PTO off the tractor instead to drive a generator. I'd imagine the end result would be more fuel and in the long run more expense.

The advantage with tractor-pulled is lower cost and higher reliability. The propulsion, guidance, and power-supply problem has been dealt with by industry already and is already owned by the farmer. The autonomous weeding machine will undoubtedly have issues with these three functions, which means down-time and cost. The machine would be cheaper if tractor-pulled, and the developers could focus on the problem at hand. Also, the tractor driver could periodically stop to monitor and tweak the weed killer, especially important given the new technology. We did a recent project with a farming implement that could have been autonomous, and when one is realistic with reliability and maintenance costs (unless one intends a McDonald's ice-cream machine repair business model) then the argument for tractor-pulled is very strong.

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

#242

Post by fractal618 »

This is awesome, I love that it will reduce the need for pesticides.

When I read people talk about how hard it is to find labor I think to myself "Well, maybe if you paid them more it would be easier to find laborers". I worked in manufacturing for a few years and plant managers were often stating the difficulty in finding laborers. I imagine offering higher wages would make it easier to find workers. No?

> "It's harder to find people to do that work every single year," vegetable farmer Shay Myers told the Seattle Times.

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

#244

Post by colinmhayes »

AlstZam wrote: post #207
pitaj wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying people to walk through fields picking weeds doesn't sound scalable or sustainable to me.

It was for the last 11 000 years. With variabilities, but based on demographic only it was pretty scalable and sustainable.

Most of humanity was suffering for the past 11000 years. Almost everyone lived in extreme poverty.

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

#245

Post by colinmhayes »

f6v wrote: post #80
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.

Raise the wages -> food prices rise. Rinse and repeat.

People would import food.

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

#246

Post by briffle »

SamBam wrote: post #173
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.

At that point, is this more environmental than applying Round-Up to the field? Each of these lumbering beasts goes 5 MPH, burning diesel the entire time. How many gallons of gas is going to be spent weeding a hundred acres of farmland?

The QSF2.8 Diesel is a Tier 4 Diesel engine, so it is MUCH cleaner burning that most tractors out there.

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

#248

Post by ninju »

Minor49er wrote: post #188
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #20

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…

Instead of a laser, I wonder if it would make sense to use positioned lenses and have the robot focus the sun's rays on each weed to burn it out. Though that probably would cause fires and would only be usable during certain hours of the day.

> would only be usable during certain hours of the day

Limiting usage to when the light will be strong enough to be focused would seriously limit the hours of usage

Maybe adding solar panels to harness solar energy to offset ICE emissions would be a consideration

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

#249

Post by redisman »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #211
gdubs wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the weed. Overall you’re going to put pressure on it. With conventional fields like the ones pictured in this article, there’s often no ground cover. If you have a ground cover (say, clover) and you’re defoliating the weeds all the time, then you have a chance. But some weeds, like invasive blackberries here in the Pacific Northwest, are extremely resilient and will shrug off defoliation.

Thanks for the info! > But some weeds, like invasive blackberries here in the Pacific Northwest, are extremely resilient and will shrug off defoliation. How does that work? I thought all plants (by definition?) need photosynthesis to stay alive in non-dormant states. Do blackberry plants have some way of getting energy other than photosynthesis in their leaves?

If you keep cutting it off and have control over its whole potential growing area it will eventually die. It has some scary properties like roots that travel 20 feet easily and spring up a new independent plant and a insane growth rate once it sprouts. If it’s out of control you probably need someone to first destroy the hedge with a flamethrower

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

#250

Post by maelito »

fractal618 wrote: post #242

This is awesome, I love that it will reduce the need for pesticides. When I read people talk about how hard it is to find labor I think to myself "Well, maybe if you paid them more it would be easier to find laborers". I worked in manufacturing for a few years and plant managers were often stating the difficulty in finding laborers. I imagine offering higher wages would make it easier to find workers. No? > "It's har…

Paying workers more is difficult when the price of food is supposed to go or stay down.
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