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To get the spraying done by firing up a few drones would be excellent.
Particularly with weeds that are in hard to reach places on the farm.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Small Robot Company have a robot called Dick which uses "Non-Chemical Weeding", i.e. they zap the weed to kill it, and it's root. They use other small robots to do the mapping and planting. I really like the idea of small, specialised robots for different tasks. https://www.smallrobotcompany.com/weed-killing
Weed zapping is fascinating - but putting the kind of power electronics required to deliver sufficient voltage in a mobile robot is terrifying from an OHSA perspective. One group I'm familiar with are using 50kv (and "more than enough" amps) for the purpose.
If people have to stay around to care for it, then yes, it's scary.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe it's monocrops that are problematic.
I'm not saying either of you are wrong but the we'll be needing the robots to do it other ways or 10x as many farmers. It takes a ton of labor to deal with weeds and other issues in a more sustainable way
So while we all need robots, there are probably a hell of a lot of people who would be able to produce even one crop a year in their backyard, who don't bother.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe it's monocrops that are problematic.
I'm not saying either of you are wrong but the we'll be needing the robots to do it other ways or 10x as many farmers. It takes a ton of labor to deal with weeds and other issues in a more sustainable way
Seems like it should hoe each weed instead of spraying it. I guess that's a little harder to do. Maybe a lot harder. Two other things I thought were interesting in the video. One, the idea of mapping the whole field is pretty cool. There must be useful things you could do with a millimeter-scale 3D map of an entire field. Two, this is happening in California, just a few hours' drive from Silicon Valley. I hope some o…
Small Robot Company have a robot called Dick which uses "Non-Chemical Weeding", i.e. they zap the weed to kill it, and it's root. They use other small robots to do the mapping and planting. I really like the idea of small, specialised robots for different tasks. https://www.smallrobotcompany.com/weed-killing
in my experience, this is the best approach. I worked at a few biotechs that did a lot of lab automation.
the robots that could do everything were hardly ever used because they did everything poorly and seemed to be constantly in need of repair.
the robots that could do one simple job were always in use.
Seems like it should hoe each weed instead of spraying it. I guess that's a little harder to do. Maybe a lot harder. Two other things I thought were interesting in the video. One, the idea of mapping the whole field is pretty cool. There must be useful things you could do with a millimeter-scale 3D map of an entire field. Two, this is happening in California, just a few hours' drive from Silicon Valley. I hope some o…
Small Robot Company have a robot called Dick which uses "Non-Chemical Weeding", i.e. they zap the weed to kill it, and it's root. They use other small robots to do the mapping and planting. I really like the idea of small, specialised robots for different tasks. https://www.smallrobotcompany.com/weed-killing
I guess in the near term dozens of specialized robots for each task will be necessary, but the idea I like is teams of general purpose robots using simple tools to perform almost any task "manually". It's too early to implement that now, but I think it will be feasible within my lifetime.
Generality is probably one reason why this robot sprays instead of hoeing. In addition to killing weeds, by changing chemicals this thing can fertilize, and they also mention pollinating and preventing pollination of flowers. (Preventing pollination avoids overburdening some kinds of trees. Currently instead people have to do "thinning" which is simply pulling half of the crop off the tree before it's ripe and throwing it on the ground).
I am waiting for this kind of tech to become viable for smaller 'hobby' type farms. you know, under 100 acres. To get the spraying done by firing up a few drones would be excellent. Particularly with weeds that are in hard to reach places on the farm.
And, you know, cheap. And usable in difficult terrain.
I can't imagine my father, or any farmer who does their job at small scales here in developing countries, being able to afford technology like that.
Weeds are the enemy /s But really, the whole idea of having perfectly manicured fields like that with no sign of any weeds around seems like the real problem to me. Zero biodiversity…we wonder where the insects are going ?