Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

freethink.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 483 posts

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

#321

Post by kickout »

MengerSponge wrote: post #179
Balgair wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 assume they mean "visible spectrum" when they say cameras, because that's what most off-the-shelf systems are tuned to. A spectrometer is a single pixel camera, I guess, but it isn't being used with imaging optics, and it isn't being used to stitch together a photograph. In a general case you could embed some version of GFP instead of glyphosate resistance. Then you can set the system loose (within the field, lol)…

Don't think there will be a need to bio-tag weed versus no weed. Current tech and sensors can probably get to 2-3 9s worth of accuracy (bonus, you don't care about accidently hitting/killing a false positive or two, there are many plants if this is a commodity crop)

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

#322

Post by sidibe »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #282

Does it leave the roots though? Seems a mechanical instrument would be cheaper and more energy efficient. Like most whiz bang farming tech it seems too clever (expensive) by half.

A mechanical instrument would have to be a lot more clever than a laser to destroy the weed without messing with the wanted plants.

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

#323

Post by canadianfella »

hosh wrote: post #307

This sounds like a much more efficient way to practice monocropping, enhance fragility, and capture economic value by increasing dependence on non-local food sources. In other news: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/04/pacific-northwest-s-...

Killing weeds means more food. There’s nothing wrong with that. 8 billion people can’t survive off picking wild berries.

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

#324

Post by kickout »

tw04 wrote: post #306
foofoo55 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>The advantage with tractor-pulled is lower cost and higher reliability. Based on what? The cummins engine they're using is bulletproof and a rounding error in the cost of the unit. Hydraulic motors will run for 10s of thousands of hours without any maintenance beyond a fluid change. People in this thread keep claiming tractors are fully autonomous, which model? If they aren't fully autonomous, what farmer is volunte…

My theory is JD,Case already have the tech to be level 4 autonomous but they haven't figured out how to make more revenue than selling $250K quad-tracs with 'some' autonomy.

https://thinkingagriculture.io/the-agriculture-unicorn-hidin...

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

#325

Post by canadianfella »

cwkoss wrote: post #284
eloff wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drones also have poor flight time to recharging time ratio. Which means you need more of them to get the job done. Farms are designed to be serviced by farm vehicles. A vehicle makes a lot of sense.

If they were able to make drones work, it could open up more variable farm designs: rows are mostly necessary so that farms can be serviced by vehicles. Polyculture farming could become much more economically feasible if drones could weed out all non-whitelisted species. Would also be a great boon to forestry: would be awesome to make a bunch of drones to fly through forests and zap any non-native invasive species it…

You think drones are going to harvest food?

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

#326

Post by kickout »

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…

Correct and also you (should) benefit from the main cash crop outcompeting the weed, eventually. Just hope it doesn't go to seed before it dies

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

#327

Post by cmrdporcupine »

bri3d wrote: post #298
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree and that's what my original comment was trying to get at. I can see selling two models, one autonomous, one three point hitch / PTO. The advantage of the latter is clear to me. But then the product starts to look a lot less sci-fi, doesn't it? We already have pull-behind weed burners that use propane torches and not lasers. The only "magic" would be in the AI recognition systems (which I have questions abo…

I think the difference is that propane torches are an imprecise mechanism generally used to clear dead area between planted rows, while this laser based solution could be used selectively within a planted row (provided it is real at all). Fully agreed about the 3-point comment though. Why take on building an autonomous tractor AND a targeted weed-killer, rather than tackling the differentiating problem only? Seems li…

Right, which is why I think it's likely a result of VC direction. It's not enough to have a profitable or sensible product, it has to be something that can sell in acquisition for 10 or 100 x the investment given.

"Autonomous vehicles are hot and AI is hot, go with that."

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

#328

Post by kickout »

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…

Pesticides highly unlikely, herbicides maybe.

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

#329

Post by Qworg »

gdubs wrote: post #266
Qworg wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the laser(s) and the weeds in question. Deep rooted weeds require different IR/UV than broadleaf. They actually kill them because they cook the root. That's ALSO why it has to be autonomous - it can't be done at a run. We worked on this when I was at MTD, but I think they abandoned the project after I left.

That’s very cool. Still working on farm space projects?

Not at this time - founded a fintech company instead.

I do miss hardware though!

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

#330

Post by cameron_b »

Frenchgeek wrote: post #224
chasd00 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'm sure i'm oversimplifying but if you can reliably identify your crop then everything else is a weed. Maybe put some kind of GMO marker that makes what you want to keep stick out like a sore thumb then you just nuke everything else.

If you know where your crops are, everything else is a weed.

This is the traditional approach and it really blows my mind that so many hammer-syndrome AI/ML/flavor-of-the-month VC spenders haven't simply gone to see for themselves what works on farms. It probably doesn't even register to the casual observer, but planting a careful row of tomatoes with the root ball in a particular direction is a fit for the cultivator tool to come by and turn the soil up on the stem of the young, but now established plant.

That's actually the "weed control at scale" developed in conjunction with the tractor.

I'm not a fan of modern conventional agriculture. The abuse done to topsoil is terrible, and we need better systems. But new systems need to keep their eye on the ball and the ball is a John Deere pulling a 40-foot cultivator across a field while the "operator" reads twitter ( or s Clubhouse ) only looking up to mind the turns.

Everything starts somewhere, but just because your tech has ML and Laserbeams doesn't mean it passes the tool/toy test.

Post reply on HN